


A Chaotic Nightmare

by sabre



Series: My Little Pony [1]
Category: My Little Pony
Genre: human crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 00:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 67,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11680701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabre/pseuds/sabre
Summary: Drake is a 17 year old who gets mysteriously plucked from his home on Earth and dropped into Equestria, while here he must find his place in the world while a chaotic fiend rises up and takes back what he is owed, the Royal Pony sisters are divided leaving Drake to fight for more than just his own life, he has to fight for the family he makes.





	1. Dropping into everything

Drake looked around in his bag for his subway he’d brought home from town, university food sucked.  
“Got it.” He said as he pulled out his 12 inch meatball marinara sandwich. His mouth watering at the sight of it as he unwrapped it.  
As he bit into the succulent sandwich, he caught sight of the digital clock on his kitchen oven. 09:46.  
His eyes widened as he realized his bus to uni would be leaving soon, he put on his grey jacket and his red vans and with sandwich clenched between his teeth, he shot out the door and sprinted to the bus stop  
As he swallowed down the last of his sandwich, he just saw the bus leaving the bus stop without him.  
He bent over trying to catch his breath; he began to hiccup from swallowing his food too fast.  
“Dam it.” He said loudly as he stood up and began to walk through the woods behind the bus stop to get on his long walk to uni. The only reason he took the bus was because firstly, it was really far, maybe about 3 miles, but to him, that was far. And secondly, the woods were gloomy and muddy.  
As he began to enter the woods, walking along the dirt road, it began to rain, slowly at first, then it began to hurl it down, he couldn't go any further as he would die of pneumonia, so he stood inside a tree that had been hollowed out, his jacket had just caught some of the rain so he took it off and wrapped it around his waist, felt stupid and put it back on.  
The rain grew heavier and heavier, soon, lightning and thunder joined in and suddenly drake knew that standing underneath a giant tree wasn't the greatest idea in the world now.  
Suddenly the whole world was lit up with a bright light.  
Drake could feel himself lying down on the ground, his eyes shut and he felt something cool between his fingers, the rain and thunder had stopped and the air felt cool and cleaner than before.  
He opened his eyes and his vision was fuzzy, but when it sharpened, he could see in the sky; fluffy white clouds that seemed to float and not move.  
“Aw crap I better not be dead.” He said loudly to himself as dark humor. He heaved as he sat up, he wasn't entirely sure that he wasn't dead. Where he now sat was in a green field with blue skies above him.  
He stood up and looked around, he could see any sign of a town, then suddenly a bush shuffled in the corner of his eye, he began to quickly walk towards it and ask who ever was inside it where he was.  
“Excuse me, where is the nearest town?” he asked it, feeling stupid talking to a bush, it shuffled slightly. “Hello?”  
A grey head popped out of the bush with golden hair and golden eyes to match, although its eyes were pointing in different directions.  
“Erm…” he murmured.  
“Hi.” It replied then snuck back down into the bush. After a few seconds, it reappeared again from the side. “You’re not a pony.”  
“A what?” Drake asked.  
“Pony…unless they changed the name. Did they?” Drake guessed she was what she was describing as a pony. But he was sure that ponies in his world didn’t talk.  
“Erm…I don’t…where am i?” Drake inquired.  
“Why, you’re in Equestria, but it’s ok, I forget sometimes as well…you don’t look like you’re from around here.” The grey pony said with a cheerful grin.  
“I’m from…far away I guess.” Drake said as he bit his lower lip.  
“Well…I’m sure the princess would want to see you…what ever you may be…” the pony said, slowly she began to rise out the bush by beating her wings and then she sped off through the woods.  
“WAIT!” drake shouted as he began to run after her, she was weaving in and out of the trees, he was made to duck underneath branches and leap over low hanging ones.  
Terrified he’d lose sight of her, he kept sprinting to keep up with her.  
Eventually he fell into an open clearing of green fields, the grey pony was lying on her back staring at the clouds.  
“Why…why did…you fly so…fast…” Drake panted.  
“Oh, sorry, I forgot.” She replied as she began to roll around on the grass. “Oh, by the way, my name is Derpy, what’s yours?”   
“My name…is Drake.” He began to catch his breath back.  
“Well Drake, this place is ponyville.” She stood up and pointed a hoof towards a town that was about a mile away, it looked small in the distance. “I’m sure the princess will want to meet you.” She toppled over from holding her hoof up and loosing balance.  
“I haven’t done anything wrong though.” Drake replied.  
“Oh no, it’s nothing bad, she’ll just want to say hi.” She flew up next to his face. “If I were you…don’t mention her sending anything to the moon…it used to be funny, not anymore.” She giggled.  
Drake stared at the town in the distance and he and Derpy began to walk towards it.


	2. A Twilight Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drake meets Twilight Sparkle on his way towards Princess Celestia.

Drake and Derpy began to enter through the towns entrance gates, the gates were a mere arch rather than full gates that Drake had back in his world.  
Soon they reached the main town centre, it had a large town hall in the middle of it and beautiful blue lakes that ran around it with bridges going over them, large amounts of thatched roof houses were dotted around outside the lakes and some stood out far more than other as clearly businesses, with large pieces of fake candy hanging off one of the buildings.  
A lot of ponies were chattering until Derpy took the first few steps into the town centre, they stopped quickly and began to stare at her, a few of the filly’s were giggling and pointing, parents were shoving their kids hooves down but didn’t stop staring.  
But when Drake joined Derpy; he had fallen behind from looking at all the buildings and not paying attention to how far in front of him she was, the ponies instantly switched their staring from Derpy onto Drake, with eyes that burned his skin, none of the filly’s were laughing or giggling now, some of them hid behind their parents legs and refused to move. Drake quickly snapped his eye sight to one of the light blue ponies with green hair who had been pushing her nose up at him; she froze instantly then ran inside one of the buildings with what looked like lace hanging around it with golden ribbon strapped on it with a very stunning effect.  
“Why do they stare?” he asked derpy without taking his eyes off random ponies.  
“Don’t think they know what you are.” Derpy replied kicking a small stone.  
“I meant why do they stare at you, you’re a pony like them.” He added.  
“I think it’s the eyes, I’ve gotten used to it by now.” She gave a wide grin.  
Derpy led Drake through the town and soon she had led him to a large tree that stood in a large clearing with two balconies and a sign outside with a picture of an open book. Derpy quickly changed her direction leaving Drake to almost trip over her if he had not jumped back a pace or two.  
She banged her hoof against the dark red door.  
“Is this where the princess lives?” Drake bent down to whisper to her.  
“No, I just have to drop a letter off to the pony that lives here.” She said as she quickly pulled out a small letter from the brown bag she had on her back. After a few seconds, the door gently swung open and before them stood a pony that was about the same size as Derpy but was a beautiful purple with dark purple mane and a light pink strip running down the length of it, he nose was muzzled in a book as it levitated by means of a glowing horn that stuck out of the top of her head and through her mane.  
“Good morning Twilight.” Derpy said to her as the letter flew from her mouth and joined its side by the purple book that had shut and was floating in mid-air.  
“Thank you Derpy.” She had a soft voice that was warm and slightly fuzzy to hear, it reminded Drake of the times in winter when he got back home and drank fresh hot chocolate and watched You’ve Been Framed. The book dropped to the ground and the letter followed with a flutter when she gasped as she saw Drake, standing twice as high as her and staring around at the huge amounts of books then suddenly back to her and took a small step back as she ran out and began to look at him at all angles.  
“My gosh, I’ve never seen anything like you before except in books.” She hopped around him and inspected him further.  
“Er…same here…ponies don’t usually talk in my world.” Drake was feeling very uncomfortable as he felt her breath on his legs.  
“Oh please come inside, if you’re free of course.” She stood on her back legs and put her front ones onto his back.  
“Actually, I was going with Derpy to see the princess.” Drake said as he look down upon Derpy.  
“It’s ok Drake, I’ve got a ton of mail to hand out before I’d even have a chance to go to Canterlot to see her.” She replied as nodded her head towards Twilights house. He nodded back and allowed Twilight to drag him inside in a hurry.  
The door slammed loudly and Twilight stood before him with a huge grin on her face slightly jumping as she looked upon him.  
“Nice house.” He said breaking the silence that was only being disturbed by Twilight squeeking as she bounced.  
“Oh it’s nothing…may I start asking questions?” she stopped bouncing and a quill, ink pot and paper flew over to her.  
“Sure go ahead, may I ask some as well inbetween yours?” he thought she would snap back and shout no.  
“Seems fair.” She replied. “Ahem… you don’t come from Equestria do you?”   
“No.” he answered, “My question, where am i?”   
“You’re in equestria, a land watched over by princess Celestia and princess Luna who pull the sun and moon across the land. Now, where do you come from?” she asked as she scratched on the parchment.  
“I come from a land called Earth, a planet inhabited by what I am known as a human.” Drake replied trying to match the way Twilight spoke. “How did I get here?” at this point Twilight stopped writing and stared at him like he had just drooled on his shirt.  
“What do you mean? Didn’t you walk or travel to Equestria?” she let the quill, ink and parchment gently descend to the floor.   
“No, in my world, I had been caught in a lightning storm and hid in a hollow tree. I don’t remember what happened after that, just light and then…I woke up in a green field and met Derpy in a bush.” She walked over to a globe that was sitting in the middle of the room and dragged it over to him.  
“Does this look like Earth to you?” she asked as she gently spun it.  
Drake took one look at it and shook his head.  
“Well, this is our world, here’s Equestria, so if this doesn’t look like your world…that must mean that you’ve travelled between worlds.” She said as she pointed out Equestria and pulled a few books off the shelves that surrounded them. She flipped open a book called ‘Stars And Star Gazing.’ She turned the book around to drake and he saw that she had opened the book upon the star constellation Leo. “Do you recognise this?”  
“Yeah, that’s Leo the lion, everyone knows that. Why did you ask me this?” he gently took the book that floated in mid-air and scanned his eyes across the rest of it.  
“We have that constellation in our world, which means that you’re still in the same galaxy, so our worlds are close to each other.”  
“Close? How is that close? A galaxy is huge.” He burst out. Running a hand through his black hair and began pacing around the room.  
“Well, taking in the idea that you could have been sent across the entire universe, it’s close.” Twilight said as she watched him sit down on a step leading upstairs.  
“Will your princess be able to send me back?” Drake thought that if this was a dream, he’d play along as he’d have nothing else until he woke up.  
“I’m sure she will do everything in her power to help you.” Twilight said gently as she trotted up to him and nuzzled him gently. “C’mon, we can go see her now.”


	3. A Train to Remember

Twilight was trotting in front of Drake as they travelled to the train station to arrive at the princess’s castle.  
They passed a few shops after they had left Twilight’s house; Drake noticed that the shops in ponyville were very different than the ones in England. These ones were built s if they wouldn’t sell a different item in their life; there was a joke shop with joke props around it, a cake shop that looked like it was made of gingerbread and others that were just as silly looking.  
Drake jogged up to Twilight’s side and walked with her till the train station came into view, there were no trains in sight, and few ponies were on the platform. A white pony with a deep purple mane and tail was hopping on the spot and had a large collection of clothes and capes that looked like they had been bombarded with jewels.   
“Oh, where is the train? AH! I’m going to be late if it doesn’t hurry up.” She grunted as the clothes floated in mid-air by something that Drake couldn’t understand how it was happening.  
“Rarity!” Twilight called out and raised her right hoof in the air, the pony turned around and her blue eyes instantly fell upon Twilight and she trotted over to the white pony who didn’t look like she could move through the clothes hanging in mid-air around her.  
“I’ll…just wait over here.” Drake called over to her, ignoring the fact that he was the only human in that world and just shouted out for the entire station to hear…so only about him, Twilight, Rarity and some old pony with a dark brown leather hat dosing off on a wooden bench.  
Drake couldn’t hear what they were whispering about, but he was pretty sure it wasn't about the clothes that hung in mid-air.  
“…a friend...” Twilight finished her sentence and they both trotted over to where drake was standing. “Drake, this is one of my very good friends, Rarity, she works in fashion.”  
Drake had no idea how to go about greeting Rarity, if he was in another world with ponies that spoke, did they have different greetings? If he petted her would she be hurt?  
“Er…hello…my name is Drake.” He bent down to her eye level as she was about the same size as a large dog.  
“Oh darling I just adore your clothes, they are so…original.” She said out of the side of her mouth.  
It felt very awkward between them as they waited for the train to Canterlot.   
“So Rarity, how come you’re going to Canterlot as well?” Twilight stood next to her and gazed at her clothes.  
“Well, I’m going to show my new line of designer clothes to a high market dealer and hopefully he will like them and set up a shop in Canterlot. Can you imagine how amazing that would be?” she squealed at the mention of ‘Canterlot’.  
“I’m sure he is going to love them.” She replied.  
After a few minutes of flying clothes and Drake kicking a small stone around and finally Rarity kicking it away, a train pulled into the station, it was glistening white with golden figures of ponies attached to it. It was puling four long carriages that had a few ponies in them, some had horns and the rest had none; Drake could see there would be no point if ponies that had wings would take the train.  
As they steppe aboard the train, having a carriage to themselves wasn't hard, there were so few ponies aboard it that they could sit alone and not be disturbed. The seats were very wide and hard as Drake sat down on it.  
Twilight sat next to him and Rarity hung her clothes on a rail that ran the length of the carriage.  
“How long does this train take to reach the princess?” Drake sat on his hands as the seats were so uncomfortable.  
“About half an hour.” Twilight replied as Rarity sat next to her, she wouldn’t take her eyes off Drake; but it wasn't a lusty look, it was more of a what the hay are you kind of look. “May I ask you some more questions Drake?”  
“Go ahead.” He nodded to her. It freaked Drake out when she pulled a quill and paper from nowhere with a slight poof.  
“Ok, what where you doing before you came here?” she began scribbling down on the parchment.  
“I was underneath a tree, I don’t know if I blacked out and taken here by someone, or something else happened, it’s all a big blur really.” Drake rocked forwards and then backwards as the train departed the station. “I’ve got a question.”  
“Ok.” Twilight replied as she marked on her parchment.  
Drake rested his head against the window and felt the vibrations running through it; it felt no different than Earth trains did.  
“What happens if the Princess can’t send me back?” he stared out of the carriage, until he suddenly fell backwards as the train ran up a slope.  
Twilight stared at the floor and Rarity was looking at Drakes red shoes.  
“Er…well I’m sure she can…”  
“But he has a point Twilight, what if she can’t. I mean, I’m not thinking less of her magic, but, if she can’t send Drake back, what happens then?” Drake smiled at her.  
“At least someone sees my thoughts.” He said to her, brushing his black hair off the glass and gripped onto his seat as the train went round a bend that climbed a large grey mountain.  
“Well, if she can’t…” she began.  
“Then I should get used to eating hay?” he finished.  
She nodded slowly.  
“But I’ll trust your princess until she says no.” Drake shut his eyes as he caught a glimpse of how high they were.  
After a few seconds of climbing later, the train tracks evened out and Drake opened his eyes again. Rarity was collecting her clothes and Twilight was standing the carriages door, she didn’t need to tell Drake to get up; he was on his feet instantly and by her side.  
“I’m going to guess she lives in a castle; being a princess and all.” Drake said as he stooped down to duck underneath the doorway; it was built for ponies after all.  
“That one to be exact.” Twilight pointed a hoof at a large tower with a golden roof and white walls.  
“Wow, that’s big.” He stated the obvious; he couldn’t imagine the queen of England living in something like that.  
As they were walking, Rarity left them to go to show the fashion pony her clothes, they said goodbye and Rarity said she hoped she would be good friends with Drake and he wished the same to her.  
A long golden road wound up to the castle and it gleamed with a beautiful glow as Twilight and Drake walked along it. There was a large purple door that was shielded by a huge steel gate, five white horses with golden armour on were guarding the front door; they didn’t move at all, just like the ones at home Drake thought.  
“Halt! What creature wishes to enter?” one of the guards beckoned.  
“Er…” Drake stuttered, his mind went blank and his vision darkened, his palmed sweated and he couldn’t get any words out; well, they were sounds, but not words.  
“I’ve got it Drake.” Twilight nudged him and he snapped back to focus. “This is Drake, he came from another world and we wish to speak with princess Celestia for help.” The guards looked at each other then stood aside and the gate raised itself, the door opened to a large red carpet in a large hall. A large golden star was in the middle of the hall with two doors leading off on both sides of left and right, a large white staircase with the red carpet leading up it stood before them with stained glass windows behind it of the sun and the moon.  
“Are you sure it’s wise to turn up at a castle to meet the princess without telling her?” Drake was terrified.  
“I’m her prize student, and you’re in need of assistance, I’m sure she won’t mind.” This didn’t help Drake’s fright.  
They climbed the staircase and turned left, Drake stuck very close to Twilight as he walked. He saw the expensive paintings and tapestry’s. He had never seen the inside of royal buildings before. They came to a door with a large sun on it with a dazzling white background.  
“This is where you’ll find the princess, and don’t worry, I’ll stay with you.” She winked at him and smiled, Drake smiled back, nodded and knocked on the door.  
“Come in.” came a light and graceful voice from inside, Drake pushed open the door and took in a deep breath.


	4. Meeting the Princess

Drake opened the white door and took a deep breath, before them was a circular room with a large fire at the back with a rug on the floor and pillows or comfort. And standing by a large window that opened onto a balcony stood a much larger pony; more likely a horse.  
“Princess Celestia.” Twilight Sparkle announced her presence to her, the tall white princess turned to face her, her light purple eyes seemed to radiate happiness and security from them.  
“Good evening Twi…you…you brought a friend, and their not a pony.” She spoke with a teacher and mother like tone that didn’t help Drake.  
“This is Drake; he came from another world and needs your help princess.” Twilight used her horn to prod Drake forwards into the room.  
He bowed before he went any closer to her and remembered what he would do if he met the queen of his world. Princess Celestia smiled warmly to his generosity.  
“Thank you Drake.” She thanked him and he slowly straightened up.  
The door shut behind them and the princess began to walk around Drake like she was inspecting him, she too had a horn but it was longer than Twilights horn and it matched her coat just like Twilights did.  
“What world did you say you came from?” the princess said behind Drake.  
“E…Earth.” He stuttered.  
“Hmmm…well…interworld travel is very rare, extremely rare and takes a lot of magic, so all you would need to do would be to reverse the spell you did and all should be right.” The princess stood in front of Drake now and looked like it was a simple explanation that anyone should be able to do.  
Drake looked at Twilight and then back to the princess, Twilight had the same look.  
“Er…slight problem….”  
“Why didn’t you tell me you could use magic?” Twilight snapped.  
“That’s the thing, I can’t use magic. I didn’t do anything to send me here, I stood underneath a tree and then poof…I came here.” The looks on Twilights and the Princess’s face both faded quite quickly.  
“You…can’t use magic?” the princess asked.  
“N…no.” he stuttered again.  
“So, something else caused you to come here?” she asked.  
“It sure looks like we’re heading down that path Princess.” Twilight replied.  
She hopped over to a large bookshelf a bit larger than Twilights. She pulled out a few books with stars and galaxy’s on them. They opened as she flicked her horn at them.  
“Well, this has never happened before, very strange indeed.” She flicked through the books really quickly.  
After a couple of minutes of pulling books out, reading through them, putting them back and pulling more out, princess Celestia finally said:  
“This is either a huge coincidence, or dark forces messing with the walls between worlds.”   
“As in plural? More than just this and my world?” Drake asked.  
“Yes, far more, thousands and millions of worlds, each different to another, but how you came here I do not know. Drake, I’m afraid that you may not be returning to your world as quickly as you’d like, you’ll have to be set up in Equestria for a while.” She spoke softly even though this was powerful words to speak.  
“He can stay with me Princess; I have a spare bed all ready for anypony.” Twilight spoke up.  
“That’s extremely thoughtful of you Twilight. I will make sure I talk with my Astronomers and see about what happened. We shall be in touch.” Princess Celestia turned her back and pulled out a quill, ink and parchment and began to write things down.  
They left through the same route and out the purple door again, as they walked to the train station, Drake couldn’t think straight, would he eventually go home, would the ponies here actually like him?  
As they sat on the train going back to ponyville, Rarity didn’t rejoin them so once again they were alone, Drake didn’t want anypony pointing at him like they did to Derpy at the moment more than any other time in his life. He rested his head against the window again, Twilight sat next to him.  
“Thank you Twilight.” He said to her.  
“No problem Drake, I’m sure your friends would do the same if I was in your predicament.” She smiled.  
“I don’t have any friends.” He quickly replied.  
“I’m sure you must have some…”  
“None, I go to a large school and yet I’m still an outcast.” The train rattled as it went down the mountain.  
“Oh, well, I’m very sorry to hear that.” She replied.  
“I wouldn’t hesitate to help you though Twilight.” He smiled at her; he could feel small tears forming. She brushed against him and he felt her horn rubbing into his skin.  
The rest of the train journey was Drake holding onto Twilight as she leant against him, once the train stopped, they got out and passed a few ponies again before they got into the town centre, all the shops were fully open now and ponies were running in and out of shops carrying bags and new items or food.  
Twilight noticed that Drake looked a bit depressed and instantly knew how to help.  
“I know who could give you a helping hoof.” She spoke in a very happy and high voice.  
“Who?” he asked tilting his head to the side.  
“Oh, you won’t know her, but c’mon.” She began trotting off in a different direction than they were already walking.  
Drake began to hop alongside her and cracked his knuckles in a manner that he always did when he didn’t know what would happen next; he didn’t do it in front of the princess because he knew it would be very rude. Twilight quickly turned her head towards him and tried to look to where the cracking was coming from.  
“Here we are…argh!” Twilight had stopped abruptly and Drake crashed into her, falling on top of her and they both laid in a heap in front of a purple barn style door lead up by lighter coloured steps to what looked like a huge gingerbread house.  
“I’m sorry Twilight.” Drake apologised immediately and helped her to her feet.  
“Thank you.” She said as she pushed open the barn door to the shop with a chime coming from what Drake thought to be probably a bell.  
“Pinkie Pie?” Twilight called out aloud. A pink pony with a light pink mane sprang up from behind the counter with light blue eyes and had a huge smile.  
“Twilight, I’m so glad you found a new friend!” she shocked Drake by how much she seemed to be much more hyper than any other pony he had met; granted he had only met a few.  
She jumped over the counter and leapt upon Drake, knocking him to the floor, her candy floss like mane fell upon his face but didn’t hide her enormous smile.  
“Oh my gosh, you must tell me your name, we can be bestest best friends for like ever, and we can throw parties all the time, I really hope you like cupcakes, and there’s loads of ponies around here that will be so happy to be your friends, but you can always count on your auntie Pinkie Pie no matter what; hehe, although that’s Rainbow Dash’s trait…” she just kept talking and talking and Drake didn’t see her stopping anytime shortly.  
“Did you say party?” Drake instantly smiled at this thought, so did the pony back at him; he couldn’t tell who’s smile would be bigger.  
“You like parties?” she asked getting closer to him.  
“I LOVE parties!” Drake said louder than he should of.  
“Brilliant. Twilight, bring your friend down to where we have the Nightmare Night celebration at 7’o clock tonight.” She stuck a hoof in the air and then shot through the barn like door and out of sight.  
Drake was still on the floor when Twilight stood over him.  
“She’s mad.” Drake said quietly.  
“I thought you might like her.” Twilight seemed a bit upset.  
“Never said I didn’t.”


	5. The Party

“How long does it take to put on a bow spike?” Twilight called up the stairs in the library to her baby dragon to hurry up.  
“I’ve almost found it!” he called back. Twilight was going as she normally went to anywhere, but Spike thought he’d wear his dazzling red tie to Drakes welcoming party. He leaned against the wall and wore a new black shirt that Rarity had made especially for him, since there were no other humans in Equestria; she took it as a huge achievement to make a shirt and light red trousers to go with it.  
“He’ll be down shortly.” She said to Drake as stared across the room.  
“What’s he getting?” he said in a flat tone.  
“Just a bow tie.” She used a brush to flatten down a spiked up piece of her mane.  
“Does this bow have jewels on it?” he didn’t take his gaze off the glistening bow that lay on a small table with a wooden head of a horse on it.  
“Yeah….” She followed his gaze to the bow that lay on the table. “Spike!” she sighed.  
“Sorry Twilight. I’m trying my best to find it.” He called back.  
“It’s down here you silly dragon.” She giggled to herself, Drake gave a small smile.  
The purple and green dragon hopped down the stairs feeling sheepish as he did and picked up his bow and tied it in place.  
“Shall we get going?” Twilight asked and Drake and Spike nodded in unison.  
They left through the red front door and Spike shut it behind them, they carried on until they reached a large opening where houses and market stalls where shut up for the night.  
“How many ponies will be there do you think?” Drake asked Twilight.  
“Easily all of them.” Spike jumped next to Twilight.  
“A…all of t…them? Drake stuttered.  
“Maybe even all of Canterlot.” Spike made Drake even more nervous now.  
Twilight nudged Spike sharply to imply for him to shut up.  
“SURPRISE!” shouts boomed from ponies that were hidden behind objects and boxes alike. Drake and Twilight jumped while Spike hiccuped slightly.  
A large amount of brightly colored ponies poured out from behind objects and streamers and banners shot out from what seemed to be large pink cannons.  
A huge banner had been draped across the town hall that read “Welcome Drake.” Seeing the town had done that, Drake couldn’t help but give a huge smile.  
“Welcome to your official Welcome to Ponyville party Drake!” Pinkie Pie came bounding up to him with a huge grin and had balloons with her.  
“Did you do all this Pinkie Pie?” Drake couldn’t stop smiling and the DJ began to play some music; it wasn't as fast and have as much bass as the techno music he used to listen back home, but it was still really awesome.  
“Yep, I talked to everypony in Ponyville and they all said yes, the DJ owes me a favor so I called it in and…” Drake cut her off by crouching down next to her and giving her the biggest hug he had ever given anyone.  
“Thank you so much Pinkie Pie, this is the biggest and sweetest thing anyone or anypony has ever done for me, I love you.” He had tears running down his cheeks as he held her. He was so glad that all the other guests were dancing because he really want them to see him cry.  
“Hey, it’s no big deal…”  
“It is for me.” She gently pushed him back a foot, Drake wiped his tears away and gave a sniff.  
“Hey now, it’s a party, we should be having fun not crying.” She jumped up and down. Drake gave one last sniff and then grinned again.  
“You’re right, I’m sorry.” He apologized, Pinkie Pie shook her head and the balloons shook as well.  
“Oh don’t apologise, I know; I’ll introduce you to ponies so you have lots and lots of friends.” She led him from Twilight and spike; they began to chat with other ponies as Pinkie Pie stopped him as they met with another pony; she didn’t have a horn like Rarity or Twilight, and didn’t have wings like Derpy did, she had an orange glow to her with a blond mane and tail that was scrunched up at the end. She also had a western hat on that matched her green eyes amazingly. On her hind leg, she had three small red apples that seemed to form in a triangle.  
“Well howdy there Pinkie Pie, and welcome to Ponyville Drake.” She had a strong western accent as she spoke.  
“Thanks.” He smiled to her and she smiled back, it wasn't as big as Pinkie Pies, but it was still a happy smile.  
“I see you have already met Pinkie Pie and Miss Sparkle.” Applejack nodded towards Twilight.  
“Oh, yeah; she’s letting me stay with her while the Princess tries to send me home.” Drake smiled again.  
“Do ya mean Princess Celestia?” Applejack asked. Drake gave a look like she was being stupid.  
“Of course, who else is there?” he gave a small chuckle then saw that he had made a stupid mistake when both she and Pinkie Pie gave weird looks to him.  
“Er…there’s Princess Luna.” Pinkie Pie said before Applejack could.  
“Ah, now I’m an idiot.” Drake looked down in disappointment with himself.  
“I am sure you’re not an idiot Drake.” Applejack replied in a sweet voice.  
“Thank you Applejack, so what do you do around here in Ponyville?” he tried to sound like he wasn't trying to be rude.  
“Well, me and my family work down on the apple farm selling apple products to the pony folk.” She replied.  
“Wow, I didn’t know there was a farm here.” Drake was actually interested in this.  
“Well there sure is, swing by when you get a chance and I’ll show you around the place.” She smiled and Drake smiled back.  
“That would be brilliant.” He called back as Pinkie Pie dragged him off to another pony.  
The music was slightly techno as Drake met with Miss Cheerilee and exchanged talk about school life; as she was the teacher of Ponyville and all. Then they met up with Big Macintosh, Drake knew that he wasn't a pony to mess with; although he was more of a stallion.  
They were dancing to a few songs as the DJ threw them out to them, Drake tried his best to dance like the ponies were dancing, most of them were just trotting side to side; a few were spinning slowly but other than that they didn’t dance in a huge manner. The music wasn't fast enough or enough bass for Drake to do anything but also shuffle side to side, Pinkie Pie was complimenting him on his dancing and Drake thought this was incredibly weird.  
He was digging around in his pocket for the source of something that was poking him in the side; he had quickly shifted everything that had been in his original trousers to the ones Rarity had made for him so he wasn't sure what it could be. He slipped out an out of power phone, an elastic band and a pin; Rarity must have forgotten to take it out he guessed, but it wasn't what was poking him, yes the sharp pain disappeared but something else jumped in its place. He pulled out a small, almost rectangle blue device with a USB plug to it and a 3.5 mm jack on the other end, his old MP3 player.  
“Hey Pinkie Pie; wanna hear some faster music?” he bent down to the pink pony.  
“Such as?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.  
“I’ve got about 100 techno songs on this thing.” He smiled, she tilted her head further when he said techno. “Hang on.” He stood up and shifted his way through the crowd towards the DJ pony. “Do you take requests?” he whispered.  
“Sure do, I’ve got great songs here, like ‘Tuesday’ by Carp Hunter, and ‘lightly step on the floor’ by Equestria Brothers.” She had a harmonic sound to her voice as she starred at him from behind rave glasses.  
“How about if you plug this in and stick it on repeat?” he pointed to the large speakers 3.5 mm input lead that lead to a small radio on the floor with the MP3 player in his right hand, supporting himself off the floor with his left.  
“Sure thing.” She replied as she pulled the lead out of the radio, the music died instantly and everypony looked up at Drake in sour looks for turning off the music.  
Just as the pony was about to plug in the MP3 player, a noisy voice and pony pushed it’s way through the crowd towards the speakers.  
“Who, in Celestia’s mane turned the music off?” a loud voice came from a light blue pony with an almost white but with a hint of blue mane, topped off with a sparkly hat and matching cape.  
“So, ya finally decided to show your face again in Ponyville then did ya Trixie?” Applejack stepped away from the main crowd of ponies and confronted her.  
“Oh please, I’m only here to see the new freak in your town.” She sneered, this stabbed at Drake like a knife all over his body. He knew that ponies had been looking at him in funny ways, but none of them had actually spoke about like that.  
“Freak? How dare you!” A flying pony flew from the crowd and argued in her face. The flying Pegasus had a rainbow tail and matching mane with a cloud and a rainbow bolt of lightning on her flank. “He’s not even from this world and yet we held our arms open for him, and…ARGH!” she screamed as the power cables to the giant speakers changed suddenly into snakes and coiled around her.  
“Leave her alone!” Drake kicked dirt from the ground into the pony’s face, as she coughed and her eyes twinged, her horn stopped glowing and the snakes became wires once more.  
“How dare you get dirt all over my cape!” she yelled. Drake froze on the spot, the unicorn’s horn began to glow again, he was petrified to the ground.  
“Dance off!” he yelled. ‘Why did I just say that?’ he thought to himself, but Trixies horn stopped glowing and she grinned wickedly.  
“Do you really think you can dance better than me?” she chuckled.  
“Yea…” he breathed out. ‘Put it on’ he mouthed to the DJ pony, she nodded and plugged in the MP3 player and stuck it on repeat.  
All the ponies gathered in a large circle around Drake and Trixie, he saw a few ponies he recognised, Pinkie Pie was standing next to Applejack and Twilight was standing with Spike on her right; to her left was a taller pony, she was a very dark shade of purple with a mane that moved on its own like Princess Celestia’s did.  
The music began as a soft rhythm, Trixie began to move with the music, skidding right up to Drake and then hopping back to her spot. She was moving her feet in beat with the soft music, but Drake knew the song and knew that it was about to increase the tempo that would throw her.  
Just as she was jumping on the spot, the speakers blasted out huge amounts of tremendous bass music, it caught Trixie and all the other ponies off guard, Drake was standing in front of the speakers as they suddenly gave a small jump as the bass caused them to shudder violently. His clothes had been tailored to his size to they didn’t move, but his red tie fluttered in the sound waves, he had Trixie right where he wanted her, as she cowered on the dusty floor, Drake began to dance to the sound of the music, jittering every time the bass bounced around them.  
He was much more flexible than ponies so he had such a huge advantage that he wanted to give them a great show, he encouraged the others to jump to the music, every pony was soon bouncing heavily and in odd splatters in the crowd. He hopped next to Twilight and whispered something into her ear.  
She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut, her horn glowed and in a matter of a few seconds, fireworks flew into the air and exploded with great strength.  
The crowd awed at them and Drake, the music was making the speakers wobbled and Drake knew it was only a few minutes before they would blow their fuses.  
‘Sod it!” he thought to himself as he snatched up a wireless microphone and shouted into it.  
“C’mon, I can still see some ponies that aren’t jumping!” the microphone fed his voice into the speakers along with the heavy bass music, now everypony was jumping high and some unicorns copied Twilight Sparkle and shot mixtures of their own fireworks into the sky. They exploded in huge amounts and in great colors, some were blue, so were red and some were all the colors.  
Suddenly a loud bang behind him made him drop the mic, the right speaker had burst and its square black frame had collapsed in on itself, the mic hit the floor and the feedback became too much for the left speaker to handle and that too burst in a large cloud of smoke.  
The whole crowd stopped jumping and cheering as the music instantly died.  
“That…was…AWESOME!” the rainbow main pony called out from somewhere in the crowd. A large number of other ponies began cheering and stamping their hooves.  
Trixie pulled herself up off the floor, shaking slightly as she did.  
“Drake…I’m…” she looked down in sadness; once again had she over done things without meaning to and caused herself to get hurt by it. She went silent as a hand was stuck out in front of her, she looked up and saw Drake holding out his hand.  
“Hey, we had fun right?” she nodded and put her hoof in his hand and shook.  
“Drake, that was awesome, I can’t wait for you to teach me those sweet moves!” Rainbow dash said to him as the rest of the crowd had almost completely disappeared. It had been a good hour after the speakers blew up; the DJ pony was glad that they died doing what they were built for.  
“Hey, a deals a deal, I teach you moves and we fly together.” He stroked her mane and pulled her in for a side on one armed hug for a brief second.  
She said her goodbyes to her old friends and her new human friend and flew off feeling very exhausted, yawning as she took off.  
“Hey Drake, I want you to meet… a long friend of mine.” Twilight was standing next to the deep purple pony as she introduced her.  
“Good evening Drake, it’s great to finally meet you.” The dark purple said in a soft voice.  
“Hi, er…are you a friend of Twilight’s?” Drake asked her.  
“Oh flip flop…I forgot to introduce you two to each other.” Twilight put her hoof to her head in stupidity. “Princess, this is Drake. Drake, this is Princess Luna.” She smiled. Instantly Drake bowed to her like he did for Princess Celestia.  
“Good evening Princess.” He said in his bow.  
“Er…thank you Drake, but please; call me Luna.” He drew out of his bow as she finished speaking.  
“Well, it’s a great pleasure meeting you Luna.” They both smiled.  
“Well, I need to take Spike home, he is a baby dragon after all; you know your way back to the library don’t you?” Twilight had Spike sleeping on her back, his bow tie tied around his tail; he had done it as a joke to try and make Rarity laugh.  
“Er…”  
“It’s ok Twilight, I can accompany Drake back to yours when he’s satisfied.” Luna replied, with a nod from Twilight, she had trotted off in the direction of her home.  
“So…er…do you like ponyville?” she asked.  
“It’s fun and everypony is so kind.” He replied.  
“That’s great to hear. Are you going to go to the Nightmare Night festival in two weeks’ time?” she asked again.  
“Sure am, I was reading in a book that was in Twilights home about Nightmare Moon and her refusal to lower the sun.” he had no idea that Luna had been nightmare moon, it didn’t say in the book about her being it, for all Drake knew; was that Luna wasn't related to Celestia was wasn't her sister. Luna kept flinching every time he said Nightmare Moon.  
“Should be a fun night.” She replied looking at the floor.  
“Defiantly.” All the ponies had gone to their homes now, it was just Drake and Luna left under the moonlight.  
“Do you think what she did was right?” Luna took a shot in the dark, and just uttering these words made her heart ache.  
“Kinda.” He scratched his head, Luna quickly looked up in astonishment.  
“What do you mean kinda?” she asked.  
“Well, I would be jealous as well if ponies slept through my beautiful night as well, I think Celestia should have swapped places with Nightmare Moon and see how she feels when ponies ignored her work.” Drake explained.  
Luna felt happy as Drake said this; no pony had ever said anything like she could have been right, nothing even close; all she got was pain and sadness in her heart when she remembered those memories.  
Drake glanced around and saw that all of the ponies had disappeared now, leaving him and Luna to talk like old friends, rather than a stranger and a princess.  
“I should be heading back to Twilight’s place.” He said.  
“I’ll take you home. It’s not far but ponyville for new folks can be quite daunting.” She replied and walked side by side with him, slightly in front of him, but only by a step.  
After five minutes of talking about Drakes world and she revealing that she had been Nightmare Moon; Drake responded by saying that her black coat would have turned him as well, they reached the large tree that was Twilight’s home, only one light was on inside, with the lamp outside still glowing.  
“You’ll have to have dinner at the castle with me and my sister one day, I really want to get to know you better.” She smiled, she had smiled multiple times before; but this smile felt different, she was much happier than she had been in a long time.  
“Defiantly will do, and I’d love to get to know the princess of night better as well.” They both smiled at this.   
“Woah, almost sunrise, I need to get back to my sister, she’ll need me to lower the moon to make way for the sun.”  
“And Twilight will think I’m some sort of nocturnal thing if I don’t sleep soon.”   
Drake and Luna gave an awkward goodbye and she flew off with him watching until she was a mere speck in the darkness, he entered the library and saw Twilight scribbling down on some scrolls with a quill that levitated in mid air.  
“Morning.” He said quietly, guessing that Spike was asleep in his bed as he was almost asleep when Twilight left with him at the party.  
“You took your time.” She replied without looking at him.  
“Sorry, I was talking to Luna and got caught up.” He walked over to her and tried to see what she was writing, the scrolls closed before he could see anything more than the address. ‘Dear Princess Celestia’  
“Well, we can go to bed now.” She yawned and Drake did so as well.  
They both went up the stairs to where two beds were set out, one of them had stars on it and the other was pink.  
“Sorry about the pink, I have it for guests.” Twilight apologised as she and Drake stepped over Spike as he tossed in his sleep.  
“I feel like I could sleep for a week, I don’t mind what colour it is.” He replied and Twilight chuckled.  
He took off his black shirt and red tie and dark red trousers, leaving himself in his black boxers and a necklace that he was trying to take off.  
“What is that necklace of?” Twilight whispered as she climbed into bed.  
“Oh, in my world we play games and one of them was called Kingdom Hearts, a boy of 15 fought with a keyblade and this is a necklace of said key.” He held it up and Twilight saw that it didn’t look like a normal key, it looked like it had a handle to it.  
“Sounds like I’ve heard of that before…meh, good night.” She shut her eyes and laid down, falling asleep almost instantly.  
Drake pulled the covers up to his neck and rested his head on the pillow, this bed was a lot softer than he thought it would have been, much softer than the seats on the train journey had been.  
He began to drift off to sleep, his dreams began to fill with everything of today, it had been filled with so much after all. Coming to a new world, meeting new ponies that could talk, becoming friends with both the princesses of this world and then dancing to extremely loud techno music. Wow.


	6. Ransacked Library

Drake had tossed in his bed throughout his sleep, leaving his upper body to hang at a slanted angle out of the bed, the sunlight had already begun to wake him by shining in his eyes.  
He tried to move his head to the side to get his eyes out of the sunlight only to find himself falling onto the floor with a thud.  
“You’re up then?” Twilight Sparkle’s voice echoed from the lower level. He let his legs follow him by dropping off the bed and slouching on the floor.  
“Here, Rarity just dropped these off.” Spike had walked up the stairs and brought Drake some new clothes that had been folded with pristine precision. The clothes consisted of a dark blue shirt and brown jeans; since Rarity had Drakes size she didn’t have to measure him and could make him clothes if he asked her again.  
“Thank you Spike.” He rolled on his back and then stood up, taking the clothes from the tiny purple dragon Drake put them on, tripping back onto his bed as he did so. he grabbed his keyblade necklace and slipped it back onto his neck.  
“Good morning Twilight.” He said as he walked down the wooden stairs to greet her, rubbing his head as he did so; his hair was incredibly messy.  
“Good morning to you as well Drake.” Twilight replied, she had made food for Spike, herself and Drake, Twilight had finished her food and Spike was tucking into his gems, Drake’s eyes widened as he saw enormous jems the size of apples and large oranges being gobbled and bitten in two like they were soft chocolate by Spike.   
“I made you fruit salad and some orange juice to drink.” She was sitting in the middle of the library reading a book, he thanked her and then ate the fruit salad, and it was so much sweeter and juicier than fruit on earth.  
“What you reading?” he asked her as he walked over to Twilight, she looked up to him and he crouched down next to her then swirled around so he sat cross legged next to her.  
“Oh it’s just a book on magical teleportation; I wanted to see if it said anything about inter world movement.” She turned her attention back to the book. He glanced over her shoulder at the books pages, it showed pictures of ponies going from one page to the other and back again covered in a purple cloud of mist.  
“Is there anything you want me to help with around here?” he asked, still staring at the pages.  
“Oh yea, there is something you could help me with, I was going to ask Spike to do this but he’s got other chores to do. The bookshelves need rearranging, apparently some got mixed. Up!” she glared at Spike who swallowed his gems and averted his gaze at her. “Just alphabetize them.” Drake stood up and stared at all the books, some were defiantly in some kind of alphabet order, but some books had messed up the order, a book called ‘flying for amateurs’ was in the Q section.  
Drake had barely started on the books and Spike and Twilight had gone shopping for quills and scrolls, when he pulled a book out called ‘how to skip’ that was in the K section and it got caught on the book beside it. It dragged it out and before Drake could catch it, it landed with a heavy thump on the floor.  
“Dam it.” He cursed to himself as he hopped off the small ladder that he had been standing on to reach the higher books. He bent down to pick it up and read the cover, ‘Keys and their existence’. The book was covered in keys and locks with a black background, he wiped the dust off and inspected the tattered pages inside, this book had seen more than its fair share of beatings it seemed.  
He flicked through the pages and hung it upside down and gently shook it to make sure that no pages had come lose, he didn’t want to have to tell Twilight that he had ruined one of her books. As he read a few lines before he was about to put it back, they couldn’t have been more dull if it was a book on how to be boring; until he saw one of the pages corner had a small key drawn in, it wasn't part of the original writing and had been inked in by somepony else.  
He read the page that had the drawing of the key, just for a few seconds, then he’d put it back and carry on with the rest of the books. He was about half way down the left page when he saw in the margin, ‘This world has been connected.’ In the same colour ink and same kind of hand writing, it was linked to a sentence in the book, ‘every type of key is unique and only one lock is opened by that key.’  
“Why does that have anything to do with keys? A quote from Kingdom Hearts, how do they even know, it’s a game, why deface a book with it.” Drake was about to turn the page when his questions thought of the big question. “Why is this defaced book in Twilights home?” he turned the page and instantly dropped the book out of fright. The books next page was completely overwritten with large words and gorey pictures, pictures of a large pony with a key lodged through its chest.  
“KILL CELESTIA.” Was scribbled everywhere on both pages.  
“Twilight! Spike!” Drake shouted until he realised that they were out.  
“Who?” a voice came behind him, he turned around to see Owloysius perched on a stand, his eyes squinting.  
“Owloysius, please, go find Twilight and give her this.” Drake had snatched up a bit of scrap paper that was lying in the bin, he also brought out a rough looking quill from one of the drawers and a small bottle of nearly used up ink. ‘Twilight come back home. Found something you MUST see. BAD!’ he quickly scribbled down, handing it to Owloysius, he waited for him to fly off, but he stayed on his perch. “Please Owloysius, go find her now!” he cried, still Owloysius would not budge. Drake had an idea, he jumped to the side and snatched up the book and showed the picture and writing to Owloysius, his eyes widened and he almost smacked into the window as he tried to fly out as quick as he could.  
Drake was left on his own, looking over the pages, why did Twilight have such horrible things in her book? She didn’t seem like the pony to ruin a book, especially not with furious writing and drawings of killing her Princess.  
He was pacing the room with the book left on a table and kept peering out the window to see if he could see Twilight. He gave a scream when the door burst open behind him and Twilight jumped in the room.  
“I just got your message from Owloysius, what was it you had to show me that was this important?” she panted. Drake picked up the open book and shoved it under her nose. It didn’t take long for her to recoil.  
“Where did you find this book?!?” she shot back two steps away from the book.  
“I found it on your bookshelf! Why do you have this book?” Drake exclaimed.  
“I’ve never seen that book in my life, Spike; have you seen this book before?” she took it in her levitation spell and turned it around to face Spike, he shook his head at it.  
“You may want to inform the Princess about this.” Drake suggested.  
“I will do, but there seems to be some kind of strong magic coming from this, it might tell us who did this to the book.” She gently shut the cover of the book and it floated in the air next to her.  
Spike had picked up a quill and ink from the table near the window.  
“Ready.” he said, both hands clutching the quill and scroll in each hand.  
“Dear Princess Celestia, I’m sorry to disturb you, but we have discovered a book with treachery words and pictures.” She began to walk around the library as she spoke. “This book also seems to give off dark magic and caution must be taken about this book, we will keep it in the library for safe keeping until you inform us of what you want done with this book. Yours faithfully, Twilight Sparkle. Got all that Spike?” she turned to spike who just finished scribbling it down and then rolled it up.  
“So what, do you just give it to the post…pony?” he asked just as Spike breathed out a burst of green flames that made Drake jump a bit as he bounced off the wall he was leaning on. He wanted to say something but nothing came to mind.  
“Anything else I should be aware of?” Twilight turned back to Drake.  
“No…well, kinda.”  
“Kinda?”  
“In the page before that, there was a quote from Kingdom Hearts…”  
“That game you told me about last night?” she tilted her head to one side and Drake nodded.  
“That quote was from my world, not here, it shouldn’t exist and it certainly shouldn’t be in a book on keys, that’s just extremely coincidental.” He explained.  
“I see, well, keep me informed if you find anything else like that in these books…only thing is I’ve been through all of them and know them all like…well, a book.” Drake gave a small laugh. She turned to walk out the door with Spike on her heels when Drake asked if he could join her, he wanted to see more of Ponyville before he had to go back to earth, she agreed that he could join her and locked the door as the three of them left the library.  
As they began shopping, Drake couldn’t stop thinking about who would obsess about killing Princess Celestia, she was so kind and friendly; even though Drake was still unable to talk when he met her. And how did something from his world come here, that quote was linked to darkness invading a world and destroying it, he dreaded to think if Equestria would succumb to the same fate. Did this world even have a keyhole to seal if it did have anything to do with Kingdom Hearts?  
“This way Drake.” He heard Twilights voice break his trance, she was standing on the step of a shop and Drake had almost walked off from her.  
“Oh, sorry Twilight.” He hopped over to her and followed her and Spike inside the shop, it was lined with shelves of liquids and mixing bowls of glass. “What shop is this?” he bent down to ask her.  
“Alchemy.” She whispered back. “Excuse me, do you still have that bottle of cures for poisons?” she asked the store clerk, he was a pony the same size as her, with a blond coat and brown mane, his cutie mark was a small bottle that was half filled.  
Drake was once again day dreaming, staring out the window at the ponies that were passing, some looked at him and hurried on, it wasn't until he saw a black and white striped pony caught his eye that he slipped along the window and caught himself before he fell on a shelf.  
He would have forgotten about her, but the necklace she had around her neck startled him, it was a small key that had a handle to it.  
“Spike, who is that pony?” he bent down beside him.  
“Which one?” he asked.  
“The black and white one.”  
“Where?”  
“Right there.” He pointed at the zebra.  
“Oh, that’s zecora, she’s a zebra that lives in the Everfree forest, you wouldn’t catch me going in there if you gave me all the gems in the world.”  
“Why, what’s wrong with a forest?” Drake wondered.  
“There are creatures that live in there that could gobble up a pony three times its size.” Drake thought he must have been exaggerating, but the stern look on spikes face said otherwise.  
He stood up and his knees clicked, Spike leaned away at the sound of it.  
“Right, they could eat ponies.” But maybe if they evolved to hunt ponies, maybe he could out maneuverer them.  
“Right, I’ve got all my things, onto the next…Spike!” she exclaimed, they had just left the shop when Spike burped and a huge ball of flames and a scroll popped out of the flames, Drake caught it and dodged the flames that Spike belched out.  
“Ooh, that’s from the princess, read it Drake.” He unrolled the scroll and read it out loud.  
“My dear Twilight Sparkle, I will be sending my royal guards to collect this book and bring it to me, they shall be at yours at about 4:30, thank you for bringing this to my attention. Your friend, Princess Celestia.” He rolled it back up and put it in his pocket. “Wish the post was that fast on Earth.” He muttered.  
“We need to get back to the library soon.” Twilight exclaimed.  
“Why, what time is it?” he asked.  
“4:15.” Spike exclaimed pointing to a large clock tower that stood near Rarity’s shop.  
“What time did I wake up?” he asked, he felt like he had been awake for about an hour at most.  
“About 2 o’clock.” She replied and quickly galloped back to the library for the guards she knew would be waiting.  
“You should have woken me up earlier, I could have helped out more!” he called out as he run with her, but being on four legs, she was slowly going faster than him, Spike looked like he was hanging on for dear life to her back.  
“We’d still be in the same situation we are in now!” she replied. Now she was further ahead and Drake was falling behind, he lost sight of her as she turned a sharp corner.  
He sprinted after her, panting on the wall as he tried to catch his breath, Twilight was standing infront of him, hyper ventilating.  
“Twilight…what's…wrong?” he gasped.  
“We shut the door right?” her voice was like a robot.  
“Yeah…locked…” he gasped as he slid down the wall and clutched his side. “Argh…stitch.”  
“Then…why is the door open?” he looked up and saw the front of the library, the door was indeed open, in fact, it was hanging off the hinges.  
“Oh dear…” she galloped into the library, Drake got up and followed her inside, all the books ad been torn from their shelves and all the drawers had been pulled out, nopony had heard of the element of subtle it seemed. Twilight Sparkle was distraught at the sight of her home, even Drakes clothes had been torn up and flung everywhere, his dark red trousers from the night before where hanging on one of the shelves.  
She had been running around the pile of books, and finally found what the burglars had taken.  
“That book on keys is gone!” she cried out.  
“I’ll get the brush.” Spike said in a dull voice and began to walk off.  
“Shouldn’t you tell the police ponies about this?” Drake asked as he looked over the damage.  
“Ponyville doesn’t have police, we don’t usually have crime here.” She sighed. Drake thought back to the police dramas he saw on tv at home and tried to copy what they would do, first he went to the busted door and looked over it.  
“Bingo!” he exclaimed.  
“What? Did you find the book?” twilight rushed over to him.  
“No…but look at this, the door is broken on its top hinges, so it had to be kicked at the top, if it was kicked at the bottom, the bottom hinges would be broken, kicked in the middle and the lock would have given out before the hinges. So a pony your size wouldn’t be able to reach, so it rules out earth pony, a unicorn might have been able to blast it open…”  
“But if a unicorn did this, why didn’t they pick the lock and then summon the book to them?”  
“Exactly, so that rules out unicorn, and the book that was taken was on the table right in front of us. If I broke in, I would see the book straight away, cover and all.” He scratched his chin. “So they didn’t know what they were looking for…well, kinda did, but they had to search everywhere, so that means…”  
“They couldn’t summon it.” Twilight added.  
“A Pegasus did this?” he looked at her, she had a confused look on her face as well.  
“Fits it, they flew up and kicked the door at the top…”  
“Err…Twilight…” Spike dropped his broom that he had pulled out of somewhere that Drake couldn’t see.  
“Are the guards here?” she jumped and looked around.  
“Princess Celestia.” He said as he bowed deeply. Drake turned around and saw the white alicorn standing before them, mouth ajar; staring at the mess. Drake also gave a bow and so did Twilight.  
“Twilight, what happened here?” she asked in shock.  
“They took that book we had to give to your guards.” Drake interrupted, he looked up and saw Celestia quickly glance up, his necklace hung downwards in plain sight, he straightened up and put it below his shirt again.  
“Oh dear, this is not good at all. I will have my royal guards standing outside from now on Twilight, you are my main priority.” Celestia added.  
“That won’t be necessary Princess…” Twilight began but was interrupted by Drake.  
“Twilight, to be fair I think the Princess had a strong point, those ponies knew where to go; the way they left this place means they didn’t care that we knew they were here. And as the princess said, you are her main priority.” He glanced at the Princess and she nodded back at him.  
“Well, I guess having two guards would settle me a little.” Twilight admitted.  
“I will make sure that guards are stationed at your door this evening Twilight, for now; I bid you good day.” She gave a small bow to Twilight but turned too quickly to see Drake give a small bow to her. She took off with her huge magnificent white wings and soared across the sky towards Canterlot.  
The rest of the day was spent by shopping for small items for Drake and popping by Rarity’s shop again to pick up some more clothing, he was flattering her every time he went round to hers by telling her that Earth didn’t stand a chance against her in a beauty contest.  
Twilight had bought Drake a chess board to play with Spike while she was out, he love to play against Twilight more than Spike though, she was more fun to wonder where her next move would be, with Spike however, he kept checkmating him with extreme ease with the same moves he did the last round. But with Twilight, he had a tough time trying to checkmate her, but won all the same, sometimes he lost; but took it as good sportsmanship and continued to get better.  
“Drake?” she interrupted his thinking when It was his go, the sun had set and the light from the candles was a lovely warm glow. Drake had changed into his pyjamas that Rarity had made him, they were an aqua blue silk with fade to white sleeves, he planned on making these last forever  
“Yes?” he moved his king back a square to avoid Twilights bishop.  
“Have you learnt anything about friendship while you have been here?” she asked, moving her rook to take his pawn.  
“Weird question, why do you ask?” he took her rook with his knight.  
“Because when I first came to Ponyville to overlook the summer sun celebration, and then the Princesses evil sister wanted to make night eternal, me and my friends stopped her, and the princess let me stay here, but I had to give her letters on what I had learnt on friendship every week.” She took his knight with her pawn, thinking it was a carless move.  
“And I guess you want me to do the same?” he then took her queen with his bishop as it was exposed when she moved her pawn.  
“Dam it, I mean, if you want to, it’d help you settle in if you learnt something new every week about friendship.” She studied to chess board for a while as Drake sat back and watched. Then she quickly moved her bishop in line with his king. “Check.” She said in a smug tone.  
Drake moved his last knight and took her bishop. “Checkmate.” He added, her eyes widened and she looked at her pieces, then Drakes and hers again, finally sitting backwards in defeat.  
“Oh horse feathers.”


	7. A Chance in the Rain

Drake couldn’t stop his dreams again from being about the same thing, that same castle with broken windows and a keyblade, over and over in his dream he kept seeing it, he tried his best to dream about something else, but it kept cropping back up, he could have been walking around ponyville and saw the castle with its depressing broken windows right next to the shop he was going in, but the one thing he could never do, was enter that castle or hold that keyblade.  
Thank fully he didn’t fall out of the bed when he woke up that morning, the cover was however falling off the bed and as soon as he sat up it fell off fully. Since he was still in his pyjamas, he stood out of bed and seeing that Twilight wasn't in her bed, he walked down the stairs like he did the day before, only this time he caught a glimpse of his hair in a mirror, his black hair usually just stuck up at the front and was slightly spiked throughout the rest, but nowhere near as spiked as the main front part. But now the entire left side was flat and the right side was pointed up all over the place.  
“Heh, I really need a shower.” He said quietly to himself, after trying to flatten his hair to no success, he began to look around for Twilight and Spike, Owloysius was sleeping on his perch so he kept quiet.  
He searched around for them, he found Spike in the kitchen, but Twilight wasn't in the house.  
“Spike, where is Twilight?” he saw that Spike was standing next to a bowl of fruit and a huge plate of gems he was gobbling faster than a speeding train. He chocked a bit and then cleared his throat.  
“She…she had to go and have a meeting with Princess Celestia. She should be back around 11.” The clock on the kitchen wall pointed to 9:07.  
“What did the princess call her for?” Drake asked as he picked up his bowl of apples, some grapes and celery.  
“I think to see how her studies are going.” Spike replied, grabbing a large ruby and biting into it.  
“Is there anything she wants us to do today?” Drake asked, he too bit into his food, taking a large bite of his apple slices.  
“She set us a list of chores and errands to run today.” Spike had finished his gems and brought out a small scroll, Drake shoved the rest of his celery into his mouth and took the scroll that Spike handed him.  
‘1, collect apples from sweet apple acres. 2, buy books on universal teleportation from book store. 3, collect bedding for Drake from Rarity.’  
“Shouldn’t take too long if we focus.” He said and finished off the rest of his fruit salad and handed the scroll back to Spike. “I’ll get dressed and we can go to Sweet Apple Acres first.” He said and then went back upstairs to get changed from his pyjamas and into some day clothes. He used a brush to flatten his hair, but without washing it; he’d have to go without his usual style.  
He went to a small wooden drawer that Twilight had emptied for him, he pulled out a brown shirt and marshmallow white jeans, they hugged his body brilliantly and felt so soft.  
“Ok, shall we go?” he said to Spike as he walked down the stairs and walked out the door with him.  
“It’s just outside town, shouldn’t take us more than a few minutes to arrive there.” Spike said and kept glancing at the sky.  
“Expecting something to fall?” Drake asked.  
“The Pegasus are organising a rainfall today to make up for the dry week we have been having.” But the skies looked clear, not a cloud in the sky, and how do anypony change the weather?  
“We should make sure we get everything done by then.” They were walking down a dirt road that kicked up dust and dirt as they walked, a large red barn began to show up in the distance and a large field of corn to the side of it, huge fields of apples went as far as the eye could see.  
“Is that Applejack?” Drake blocked the sun glare from his eyes as he squinted, it certainly looked like Applejack, an orange pony with a light blond mane and cowgirl hat was kicking an apple tree and a larger red pony was moving carts full of apples towards the barn.  
“Yeah…she does live here.” Spike shot an odd look towards Drake, then quickly realising that he had no clue about anypony that lived in Equestria he apologised.  
“How many apples does Twilight want?” he asked just before they reached the apple farm.  
“I think a sack full should do it. Good morning Applejack.” Spike waved towards her, she waved back to him and Drake.  
“Howdy Spike, Howdy Drake.” Drake loved her accent and smiled when she spoke.  
“Morning Applejack.”  
“What can I do you for?” she walked towards them.  
“Twilight needs a sack of apples.” Drake got there before Spike could talk.  
“Sure, go to the barn, there should be one by the door, Twi paid in advance so there’s no need for payment.” She smiled and went back to bucking apples, Drake quickly walked over to the large brown sack of apples, it looked heavy but he didn’t falter when he picked it up and carried it on his shoulder.  
“You got it alright?” Spike asked as Drake walked over to him carrying the sack.  
“Yeah I’m fine.” He replied and they set off from the farm and thanked Applejack.  
“Ok, books now. There’s a book shop in town that we should stop at, it should have what Twilight needs.” Spike rolled the scroll back up and Drake put it in his back pocket when he put his hand out for it because Spike had nowhere to store it.  
The book shop had less books than Twilight did, Drake almost felt like this was a pathetic excuse for a book store, he left the bag of apples by the side of the front door and helped Spike find this book that Twilight Sparkle wanted.  
It didn’t take long for them to find it, the book keeper wasn't very friendly towards Drake, thinking him as something that didn’t belong here and wanted getting rid of like a bug, Drake didn’t rise to anger; but kept thinking about if any other ponies thought the same about him, he asked Spike and he said that he wouldn’t want to see him go, he was giving a small smile until they reached Raritys shop.  
“Hi Rarity.” Spike gazed at her as she had several clothes floating around her head.  
“Good morning you two, ah! Drake, I was hoping I would see you, I have a photo-shoot for a big fashion designer today and I was hoping you could give me some advice on clothes.” She had dropped her clothes and scooted right up to Drake.  
“Er… I don’t know much about fashion though.”  
“Oh, but Earth would have different styles to us, and Different is so IN right now!” she was bouncing slightly.  
“I’ll do my best.”  
“Are you free now?” the clothes behind her began to levitate on their own and floated onto hangers and then onto rails.  
“Am I Spike?” he dropped down to Spikes level.  
“We have all the time in the world to be here.” Spike had a glazed over look in his eyes and tone.  
“Yep, I’m free now.” Rarity began to making squeaking sounds and rushed out to get a pencil and paper. Drake was looking at her costumes that had been moulded around a pony mannequin.  
“Have you heard of socks?” he crouched down and was looking at the hooves.  
“Socks?” she echoed from her back cupboard.  
“Do you have some spare cloth I can borrow?” Rarity wasn't in view, but some black cloth floated over to him, he wrapped it around the hooves of the mannequin and tied it with some pins to the doll.  
“WOW!” Rarity was in awe as she skidded over to the makeshift socks that were on the mannequin.  
“It’s not much…”  
“Not much? They look wonderful!” she had quickly pulled out a tape measure and began to take measurements of the roughly created socks and began to create better looking ones with full bits of cloth and needles and thread. “Photo Finish will love these…what id you say they were again?”  
“Socks.” Drake replied and saw Spike pointing to the open scrolls third request. “Rarity, Twilight sent us to collect some bedding. Do you have it?”   
“Oh yes, it’s in a purple bag behind the counter.” She replied and Drake went behind the counter, crouched down and stood back up with a purple bag that seemed to be bulging with its contents.  
“We’ll leave you to your socks then Rarity, thanks for the bedding.” She waved goodbye and they left her shop.  
The clouds in the sky had gathered over the town and became dark and thunderous.  
“We need to get back to the library before…” the heavens opened and Drake and Spike were flooded in rain.  
“Before we get wet?” Drake finished through a grin.  
“Shut up and let’s just get home, Twilight will be furious with me if you get a cold.” Spike huffed and began to walk in a slump.  
“Oh don’t worry about me, my immune system is strong.” He smiled; Spike blinked twice and stared with a ‘what did you say?’ kind of look. “I don’t get ill easily.” He simplified it and Spike nodded.  
“But she would still give me a time out at least.” He shook the rain off his dragon scales and soon the library was in sight again.  
“She may not be home just yet, I can just get dry, so can you and she will be none the wiser about it.” They walked through the red door with a candle drawn on it.  
“WHY ARE YOU BOTH SOAKING?!?!” Twilight Sparkles voice boomed at them. They both jumped at her sudden shouting.  
“Er…Twilight, I didn’t know you’d be home this….” Spike stuttered.  
“Drake, go upstairs and get a warm shower.” Her anger instantly subsided as she spoke to Drake, but jumped again as soon as she turned back to Spike. “Spike, you knew there was going to be a rain shower today. Why didn’t you be quick at least?”   
“He warned me.” Drake spoke out, Twilight turned around and Spike had a panic look in his eyes. “He warned me about the rain before we left, it was my fault we got wet, I was wasting time at Rarity’s and knew the rain wouldn’t wait for us, if you have to blame anypony blame me, not Spike.” He explained, Twilight looked between Drake and Spike, finally she breathed out and sighed.  
“Just get a shower and Spike, you need to put the apples away and change Drakes bedding.” Twilight turned around and used her levitation to float the bag of apples off Drakes shoulders and into the kitchen where Spike was wrapped in a towel by Twilight and rubbed dry.  
Drakes shower was defiantly warm and cosy, Twilight had a smaller shower than he was used to but got his hair and body clean all the same, she had a mint shampoo that she let him use and he left the shower feeling brilliant and relaxed.  
He towelled dry and was about to put on some day clothes when Twilight told him that he and Spike had done their jobs, he was able to put on his blue and yellow pyjamas and sat next to Twilight as she wrote to the Princess about her lesson on friendship.  
“Would you mind on starting your letter to the princess Drake?” she asked as she hovered over a scroll and an ink well plus a red quill with a gold tip.  
“Right now?” he picked the quill up and rolled it in between his fingers.  
“Yes, just right what you know now than you didn’t before.” She explained, he dipped the quill in the ink and began to write.  
‘Dear Princess Celestia.’ He stopped and tried to think. What did he learn about friendship. He hadn’t been asked something like this before, it was mostly about chemistry and IT questions.  
Twilight had finished her letter and handed it to Spike who sent it off in a fireball of green flames.  
“So…what did you chat to the princess about?” he rolled the scroll up and put the lid back onto the ink well.  
“Oh, just the set up for the Nightmare Night festival.” She replied and stood up to grab a book.  
“Spike said it was on your studies.” Drake was still sitting down as he grabbed a book as well of the table that he was sitting under. ‘Equestria and its history.’  
“Oh…er….yeah, that as well.” She faltered.  
Drake was biting his keyblade necklace as he began to read his book, Twilight grabbed a dark blue book and sat on a small chair with white stars on them.  
“Oh, by the way, we’re having tea at the Princesses castle tomorrow at 5.” She called out like she was saying it would rain again.  
“W…what?” he stuttered and dropped the book.


	8. The Castle Dinner Becomes Deadly

“Oh you’re so lucky to have dinner with the Princess, I am so envious of you.” Rarity said in a bitter tone. Drake was standing on a platform in her Boutique as she measured his sizes and began to wrap him in cloth, cut it and stitch it to create a suit for him for the royal dinner tonight.  
“I’m terrified of it myself.” He said making sure not to move as pins flew in all directions and pinned themselves to the cloth.  
“Well who wouldn’t? A dinner with the Princesses in the royal castle is huge, defiantly something that all the ponies will be talking about for weeks.” Her voice squeaked at the end of her sentence.  
“Better not mess it up.” He said quietly to himself. “Ow!”  
“Sorry.” Rarity apologised and pulled out the pin that had jabbed into Drakes thigh. “Are you and Twilight going together?”   
“Yeah, doubt I’d be able to go anywhere without her.”  
“She is a good friend that’s for sure.” She tightened the cloth around Drakes leg and cut off the excess fabric, removing the cloth and stitching the inside; she turned it inside out and sewed it onto the rest of the parts of trousers she had placed on her table. “Half way done Drake, just the top to go.”  
“Did Twilight come to you for her dress?” fabric wrapped around his shoulders and arms that were pinned in place with safety pins.  
“Oh yes, to begin with she wanted to use a hideous yellow and pink dress, I said to her that it just wouldn’t do, I had this problem with her dress sense when she brought me another hideous dress and was going to wear it for the Gran Galloping Gala…”  
“Grand Galloping Gala?” he watched her from the corner of his eyes as she worked on his arms that were outstretched like he was a scarecrow.  
“I keep forgetting you don’t know the events here darling, excuse me. The Grand Galloping Gala is the grandest event here in Equestria, it takes place in the summer and all the ponies that are anypony are there. I went there last year in fact, oh it was gorgeous…”  
“OW!” Drake squealed as Rarity was in a trance like state thinking back to the Grand Galloping Gala and had accidently jabbed him with a safety pin.  
“Oh sorry dear.”  
“It’s alright Rarity.” Drake accepted her apology and she carried on measuring, cutting, stitching and creating his suit.  
“Good afternoon Drake.” Twilight said as she saw him walk in through the door of the library, he was carrying his suit over his arm in a white suit bag.  
“Good afternoon to you to Twilight, Spike around?”   
“No, he went out to get something…”  
“Great, cause I really want to show you the suit Rarity made for me.” He said quickly as he shut the door and whipped out his suit.  
“Can’t wait. Oh wait! I’ll get my dress and we can show each other.” She shot off upstairs and Drake went through the kitchen door to put his suit on.  
A few minutes went by and Twilight called out to see if he had his on yet.  
“Yep, you got your dress on?”  
“Yes!”  
“Ok, on the count of three we show each other, ok?”  
“I hear you!”  
“Ok…one…two…three!” he jumped out of the kitchen and Twilight appeared from a reappearing spell, she was wearing a dark blue dress with white star signs on the cape and socks that matched, a tiara that looked like it was made of gold with light blue small gem stones around it.  
“Woah, you look great.” Drake smiled at her, she blushed and shied away.  
“You look brilliant though.” She replied. Drake was wearing a very dark red jacket with a white shirt and black tie with three red streaks at the bottom going vertical; his trousers were high quality black cotton with dark red waves at the hems of them at the bottom.  
“Thanks, Rarity sure knows how to make clothes look great.” He added and he was examining his sleeves.  
“Think tonight will be fun?” she asked.  
“I just hope I don’t mess it up.” He replied.  
“Just stay with me and you’ll be fine Drake; I’ll take care of you like…”  
“Like a baby dragon?” they both laughed at that.  
“Yes, just like a baby dragon.” She was still chuckling as she went upstairs.  
The castles doors were open so Drake and Twilight were able to walk right in to the Canterlot castle when they had said that the Princess was expecting them, the guards let the right inside.  
“Ah, Twilight Sparkle and Drake, it’s wonderful to see you were able to join us.” Princess Celestia greeted them at the top of the staircase, Princess Luna caught Drakes attention as she stood right next to her as she spoke.  
“Thank you so much for having us as your guests your majesty.” Twilight bowed and Drake followed.  
“I was hoping to get to know you better Drake when Twilight and my sister and talking about their studies.” Princess Luna had walked down the stairs and stood in front of Drake, her beautiful dark blue mane swirled right next to Drake.  
“I’d be happy to talk with you Princess Luna.” Twilight was busy talking with Princess Celestia at this point and had walked up the stairs to her.  
“Is that alright sister?” Princess Luna called to her older sister.  
“Yes Luna, it’s alright.” Princess Celestia replied, Princess Luna was almost bouncing at this point.  
“I really want to show you the royal garden Drake, if that’s ok.”  
“I’d love to the see it.” He replied and he and Princess Luna walked away from Princess Celestia and Twilight.  
They walked outside into the night and were greeted by the cool breeze and the moon shining its eerie glow down upon them.  
“I’ve always loved the night, noponys out and silence is just beautiful.” Drake told Princess Luna.  
“I didn’t know you were the type of one to enjoy the night.” Princess Luna replied. “Not many ponies enjoy my night.”  
“You should see people in my world we call ‘gamers’, they’re up all night and we know how nice it is to have silence when we battle a boss.” He said as they walked past a couple of statues.  
Drake was looking at a statue of a large creature that looked like it was wearing a large dress that covered its head and stood with skeletal legs. It made Drake feel really uneasy and hated to look at it any further.  
“I see you’re looking at the ‘Despromotive’, he gave me and my sister a real hard time when he was fighting.” Luna slowly walked next to Drake and she too didn’t look at it directly.  
“What is a Despromotive?” he asked.  
“He, like the God of Chaos Discord, is a God; but a God of depression and emotions of uncaring. When he came into Equestria, he caused all the ponies to become depressed and it spread like wildfire. Crops died from not being tended to because the ponies didn’t have it in them to do it, that meant no income since nothing could be bought and ponies began to starve, they too were infected by him and Equestria soon began to fall apart.” She explained. “Me and my sister wielded the Elements of Harmony and sealed him in an unbreakable tomb of stone.” Drake stood back quickly.  
“So this statue is alive?” he franticly asked.  
“So to speak, yes.” Luna wasn’t as taken back by the living statue.  
“Right…that’s creepy.” He said in a bizarre tone.  
“Would thou like to see the off limits treasures?” Princess Luna leaned next to Drake and whispered to him.  
“Are you sure it’s ok? I mean, would your sister allow it?” he replied, he did want to see some of the stuff that others couldn’t see, but he didn’t want to do it if it meant Princess Luna getting in trouble, he didn’t want to cause the night to be ruined because of him.  
“Of course, we wouldn’t say so otherwise.” Suddenly, she shot underneath him and lifted him off the ground; she had Drake on her back just behind her black wings. He held on tightly as she soared high into the air, in a few seconds, they were well above the castle and could see until the horizon. The stars seemed so much closer, but still far away, the moon hung silently and all the ponies were asleep. The only sounds that could be heard were the faint flaps of Princess Luna’s wings as they beat once every few seconds.  
“Wow, this is just…” he couldn’t finish his sentence, the words wouldn’t have been enough for what he could see, it felt weird knowing that somewhere deep below him and Luna were Twilight and Princess Celestia chatting about their tedious studies, while he was much higher than the clouds; even though the sky was clear.  
“We get to see this every night, and yet, even my sister won’t see the night like we do.” Princess Luna’s ear drooped a little.  
“I can see why you would have wanted everpony to see the night…it’s so much nicer up here than on the ground; away from all the enclosing buildings and hard stone ground.” He said quietly.  
“But all the crops would perish, and we would be to blame.” She reminded him, her mane flowed gently in the cool night breeze as her wings kept them floating.  
“But maybe just for a few hours, just so ponies can see it…”  
“You sound just like I feel.” She chuckled, Drake gave a weak smile even though he knew she couldn’t see it. “We should re-join my sister and Miss Sparkle.” She said and they gently floated back down to the ground, Drake hated it when he hopped off her back and landed back on the ground.  
“They should be expecting us for dinner now.” Princess Luna said miserably, Drake didn’t want to re-join them, he just wanted to spend the whole time flying with Luna.  
“So, Drake, have you been learning about anything since you have been in Ponyville living with Twilight Sparkle?” Princess Celestia asked him, they were sitting at a low wooden table made out of the finest trees in equestria, Drake was sitting opposite Princess Luna, Twilight was next to him and she was sitting opposite Princess Celestia.  
“A strong amount of history about Equestria I guess.” Just like the fruit that Drake had at Twilights home had been placed in front of him by the servants, but the fruit that he had been given was much more royalty styled than of what Twilight was able to get hold of, things like avocados and berries that he had never seen before in Equestria.  
“Anything about friendship?” she made the subject in which she was asking much clearer now.  
“Oh yes, I told my friend Applejack that I would help her build houses for the citizens of ponyville over the weekend, I wouldn’t let her down.” He replied felt awkward as Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and Twilight Sparkle used their magic to lift their food in front of them and bit into it; whereas he picked up a small berry and just ate it without magic.  
“How did you build homes back on your world?” Princess Luna asked.  
“I’m sure it’s the same as in Equestria just without the use of magic, we use wood and nails, plus brick and cement.” He answered. The trees rustled and tapped on the window they sat underneath. The moon was now hidden behind clouds and the only light outside was the light from inside that shone through the windows.  
“Is Earth very different to Equestria?” Princess Celestia gulped down her brilliantly made sandwich.  
“Let’s just say I’m dreading the day you write to us and say you know how to send me back.” He swallowed some slices of apples that looked like they were made out of gold. Princess Celestia nodded in acknowledgement at his reply. The wind was beating heavily against the window as they continued to talk about what there is to see in Equestria and the Princess even gave some information on the scrolls in the castles library, as they were talking about how it would be possible to jump across entire Galaxies to reach Equestria from Earth.  
“I also heard you burst the biggest speakers that ponyville had. I’ve never heard of music like that.” The princess stated as she finished her food, Drake finished his a few seconds afterwards.  
“I didn’t know you were present at that party.”  
“I wasn't.” she replied in a chuckle. “I was kept awake all night by it, the whole of Canterlot could hear it.” She laughed and Drake laughed as well.  
“I’m sorry about the volume.” He apologised.  
“Don’t, she was dancing.” Princess Luna chuckled and Princess Celestia shot her a stern look.  
“I was wondering Drake; the Grand Galloping Gala is coming up in a few weeks and the music is always so…well…boring.” Drake laughed to hear royalty say that her classic music was dull. “I was hoping that you could sort out some music for it.” She smiled and Drake thought about it, the speakers for the biggest party in Equestria would be huge, it might even break the castle with the bas he had on his MP3 player, but he remembered what Rarity had said about it and decided it would be a great honour to do it; he wouldn’t have said no to it anyway.  
“I’d be thrilled to do the music for your party Princess. But I do have one question.”  
“And what might that be?” she asked as Princess Luna and Twilight finished their course.  
“Do you want softer music than the stuff you heard before, or same or maybe harder bass?” he tried to think of the softest and greatest bass music he had.  
“What’s bass?” she tilted her head slightly; less than Pinkie Pie did but still a tilt nonetheless.  
“Well, if you want soft bass, it would be like a small vibration in the room, or big bass would be that you would want to put your fine china away at the beginning.” The princess laughed at this, but Drake had a serious look to his face.  
“Surprise me.” She smiled and Drake knew instantly what music he would put on.  
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Drake saw something big and dark fly towards the window, he wasn't why where his energy came from, or even why he did it. Maybe because he just a little bit crazy.  
Drake jumped out of his chair and hurdled the wooden table and lunged at Princess Celestia, he heard a large shattering sound and his thoughts about something flying through the glass was right. Princess Celestia’s eyes widened and her horn slowly glowed to summon her magic to protect herself, but she wasn't quick enough and Drake caught her off guard and caught her around her neck, they came crashing down upon the ground and her Twilight yell and Princess Luna jumped out of her seat, for all they knew was that Drake had just attacked the Princess for no reason what so ever.  
The object that had smashed the window had shattered a large hole in the window and destroyed the wooden table, sending the plates and cutlery soaring into the air and crashed to the floor, the plate shattered and the knives, forks and spoons had clattered to the floor in a large din that had alerted the guards.  
Princess Celestia and Drake had smacked against the floor and the glass from the window had shot out in different directions; most of it had shattered into small tiny pieces and speared the broken table. But one large lighting shaped section had pinged off from the rest and was hurtling towards Drake and Princess Celestia. Twilight and Princess Luna had tried to conjure their magic spells to halt the glass before it killed them but their magic had missed it and their magic spells crashed into each other and shot tiny flames from Twilights magic and Princess Luna’s magic shot had pinged off and shattered a glass window depicting Nightmare moon being defeated; the glass fell to the floor and didn’t do any damage.  
Instinct took over and Drake jumped up from being on top of Princess Celestia, he caught the large shard of glass and he shed blood around the sharp edge of the glass shard, it trickled down the edge until it reached the lowest point and fell into a small pool of crimson red blood. He couldn’t hold it any longer than half a second from when he caught it and pushed it down onto the floor, it shattered just like the rest and now became a pile of glass and fresh blood.  
“Princess! We heard a noise and…WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!” the guards barged in through the large green doors that led from the main hallways to the private dining area.  
Drake could see how this would look bad for him, someone from a different world was standing over the panicking sun princess, blood had seeped from his wounds and had unintentionally fallen onto Princess Celestia’s pure white fur, leaving her blood stained. He had blood all over his hands with sharp glass everywhere that also had blood on them and nearly all the glass pictures had shattered.  
“I swear this looks far worse than it should be.”


	9. Building Homes

The benches in Drakes cell were really uncomfortable, after the guards burst in to find Drake and Princess Celestia covered in blood and Drakes hands soaked in it, he couldn’t deny that it looked bad for him and he did try to explain to them about that he caught the glass and threw it down and that’s how he got cut and he dived on top of the Princess to save her, but al they said was that ‘no pony or person would be stupid enough to catch flying glass with their bare hands or hoofs.’  
His cell however was unusual, it had clean stone grey floors and even the hay bed seemed to have some bounce to it.  
The guards had tackled him and pinned him to floor; which he now wished he hadn’t of gone to the dinner, at least the guards had seen to his cut on his hands before they put him in a cell, they were now wrapped tightly in white bandages causing them to feel tingly; although he was glad he didn’t slice his hands clean off to start with.  
It must have been about half an hour of Drake whistling ‘Awake and Alive’ when a guard came to his cell door and interrupted him.  
“You’re free to go now, the Princess has ordered that you see her in the private eating quarters to rejoin Miss Sparkle.” He spoke with a strong voice and the door swung open with so much as a creak.  
He thanked the guard for letting him out and had soon found his way back to the private dining room and turned the golden door handle to enter, he flinched as his bloody palm gripped the door handle and felt like it was on fire.  
“Good evening Princess Celestia.” He bowed as he walked in the room, the wooden table was still present with the large black rock that had shattered the window and split the table in two. The glass had been cleared and the remaining shards in the window had been removed so it was empty of glass completely. “I was told to rejoin Twilight in here.”  
“Don’t bow, we have things that need dealing on the table Drake.” She said in a way that he never thought he’d hear from a Princess, and especially not her.  
He slowly stood back up and watched her walk with a majestic but also pained walk over to him, the table was raised on a second platform so when she stepped down, her tail bounced on the step until she reached him.  
“There is something that you need to know about me Drake.” She sighed and used her large white wing to guide him out of the private dining area, they travelled to the main hallway that led off from the main entrance.  
“Can I get a hint?” he spoke out, not sure if he wanted to know.  
“Your necklace.” He said, he quickly looked at his chest, there hung his dark silver keyblade necklace. “Here.” She stopped suddenly and Drake bumped into her flank.  
“Sorry…”  
She inserted her horn into the hole that was placed directly in the middle of the door, the door itself looked like it had red chains crawling out of the door and into the large lock that surrounded the hole.  
With a loud click, the chains fell away and dangled to the floor then seem to give off a small explosion and faded into red clouds of smoke that blew away with the breeze of the castle.  
The door opened to reveal a large circular room, it was much small than the main hallway he had come from but it still had the white floor and white ceiling, but something about that room felt strange. Was it the dust? Was it the white keyblade bolted to the wall? Was it that there were windows but still had the light of day?  
Wait…keyblade?   
Drake had to double take as he saw it held to the wall with chains and large black bolts.  
“How did you get this?” he ran over to it and inspected it further.  
“It’s mine.” She replied, Drake was about to touch it when a guard came running to the room and caused Drake to almost jump out of his skin.  
“Princess Celestia, Miss Sparkle and Princess Luna wish you and your friend to meet them in the courtyard with haste.” He boomed before darting off in the other direction.   
“Come on.” She ordered Drake who quickly followed her out of the room and down the steps and finally out of the castle, they circled around it and caught sight of a certain purple unicorn that stood beside a dark alicorn.  
“Found anything?” Drake whispered in Twilights ear as he bent down to talk to her.  
“That boulder came from here, with security this tight around the castle though it’s a wonder how nopony saw the culprit.” Princess Luna and celestia were inspecting some deep prints in the ground.  
“They weren’t a pony, that’s for sure.” Princess Luna stated. “Looks like there were two of them.”  
She had now pulled her sister to one side and was talking to her in a voice that was so quiet that Drake couldn’t hear her. He did however get to see the prints in the ground, they defiantly didn’t belong to a pony, and they looked like they belonged to a goat and some sort of dragon.  
“I have a horrible feeling I know who they belong to, but I don’t want to think about it.” Twilight whispered to Drake. Princess Celestia returned to face Drake and Twilight, Drake stood up quickly and made it look like he wasn't doing anything that would arouse suspicion by straightening his clothes.  
“Twilight, I’m sorry but we need to cut our dinner a bit shorter than we thought, we’ll try and get another date when this whole mess is sorted out.” Her voice had changed back to its soft and gentle tone, rather than its ordering tone that she used with Drake.  
“I understand completely Princess.” Twilight bowed and Drake did the same, the Princess gave a short bow herself and returned to her sister, Princess Luna looked like she was trying to get past her older sister, but Celestia blocked her path and made her hold her ground, Luna glared at her and looked at Drake with sad eyes, he gave a wave and she waved back with a depressed manner.  
“So let me get this straight, the Princess has a keyblade under lock and key…horn…what ever.” Twilight tried to get her head around Drakes frantic words, the carriage ride home wasn't pleasant as Drake feared they would be over heard by the driver. They had arrived back at the library and Drake had been going on about what Princess celestia had shown him for the last hour, he was keeping Spike awake with his voice so he continued to groan from under his sheets.  
“YES! It shouldn’t take that long to figure out.” Drake had taken off his jacket and flung it on the table that contained all the scrolls to the Princess that spike needed to deliver. Twilight didn’t complain as she had taken hers off completely and dumped it on the same table.  
“Hey! You’re saying random stuff constantly, I don’t know anything that goes on in your world.” She raised an angry hoof to being yelled at.  
“Sorry Twi, that was uncalled for, I apologise.” She lowered her hoof and pulled books off their shelves, a dozen were now floating around Drake and Twilight.  
“Read that.” Twilight flung a dark red book at Drake who caught it swiftly and flipped it face up to read the cover.  
“A history on Discord. What’s this for?” he asked in a monotone.  
“Those prints outside the castle were defiantly not pony, but I fear that they belong to Discord.” She shuddered as she said his name, “I thought we had seen the last of him the last time we fought him, but I’m terrified to think if I didn’t see his statue at the palace, oh this is not good, not good at all…” Twilight was panicking, the books were now circling her at a fast pace as she ran the other way and began to wear into the floor.  
“Twilight…just…slow…Twilight…” Drake tried his best to stop the pony pacing around the room as best as he could, but the books around the unicorn kept batting him away.  
“Oh, I should tell the princess.” She grabbed a blank scroll and quill plus an ink pot. “Dear Princess Cele…HEY!” Drake snatched the scroll from Twilight and held it behind his back.  
“Twilight listen, the princess will have a lot on her mind and chances are she knows about this Discord guy.” She growled at him and acted like an aggressive dog as she bared her teeth.  
“Twilight please…just listen to him and go to bed.” Spike was standing on the top step and had his blanket over his head like a gown.  
“Fine…” she sighed and finally dropped her head in a sign of yielding, her purple mane fluttered slightly as she her head droop.  
“The Princess by now I’m sure thinks that same as you and I’m fairly certain that she is exhausted as well and a letter would just aggravate her.” He explained and Twilight nodded slowly.  
“I guess so…” she whispered, she certainly didn’t like being told that she was wrong. “Speaking of letters, where’s yours?” her voice was now a different tone than her ‘I know but I don’t want to be told’ tone.  
“Not done yet…” he snapped his vision to the desk he and Twilight dumped their clothes on, underneath them somewhere lay his incomplete letter to the princess about friendship.  
“It’s been nearly a week though…”  
“And it’s 3 in the morning and my hands are covered in blood, I was arrested and thrown into prison and the princess was almost killed by a flying boulder. I think we can let it slide for today.”  
“Ok, fine, let’s just go to bed.” She replied and they both did their respective things before climbing into bed, Drake removed his fashionable clothes and into his pyjamas, green with light blue lining, the bed sheets were finally his kind of colours; red and black.  
Twilight had re-tucked Spike into bed and got into her own bed, her sides ached from being up for so long and she drifted off to sleep very easily.  
Twilights dream focuses mainly on the fear of Discord, the prick of terror that ponyville would once more be in danger and she didn’t know why, but the last time he had been active, he didn’t do much more than drink the glass of a glass of chocolate milk, but she knew that her friends friendship would break him again if he had returned, and this time the Princesses would not stand for it.  
But something in her dream didn’t add up, even though she had read that dreams wouldn’t be exact because physics didn’t exist completely in a dream world, but it was spooky to say the least.  
She was in the middle of ponyville watching a play of Rainbow Dash and the Wonder bolts. All of her friends were there and even Drake was as well, but every time he spoke, his voice sounded demented and that terrified her. He didn’t have a shadow and even had gashes along his arm, but he was cheering all the same like everypony else was, but in the end, she woke up in a cold sweat with the sun shining on Drakes bed, without him in it.  
She bounded out of bed and tried to run to the stairs but ended up tripping over her bed sheets and getting tangled in them, in a flash she had teleported to the bottom floor.  
“DRAKE!” she yelled out to no response, neither from Drake nor Spike, he was always at home and barely left it if he wasn't with Twilight. She sought to her magic to find out where they were, her horn glowed and her mind suddenly jumped to Sweet Apple Acres, but she also saw something dark and wasn't deciding to leave that farm any time soon, she saw the eyes first, yellow and red that glared at her in the darkness.  
Panic flooded her body, Sweet Apple Acres was built next to the Everfree forest and even Princess Celestia didn’t know fully what lay in there.  
Running would take too long so once again she sought to her magic, she focused her mind upon Applejacks farm and tried to force her body to disappear from the library and to take her towards the farm, it took a lot of effort but in a few seconds she felt her body vibrate violently and suddenly stop; she opened her eyes to see the apple trees of Sweet Apple Acres.  
Drake was standing next to Big Macintosh, they had a wooden table in front of them with what looked like blue prints; building materials were laid out along the tree line. Drake was wearing what looked like Applejacks work wear, but it had been shaped to fit Drake form, defiantly had Rarity’s stitching technique Twilight thought to herself.  
“Drake!” she yelled at him, he spun around and almost toppled over, big mac just looked lazily to his left and then behind him, “What are you doing here?”   
“I’m…I’m sure I told you that I was helping the Apple family build some new houses.” He stuttered.  
“What? Oh…the houses…I’m sorry….i just had a vision of dark creatures and then I couldn’t find you or Spike!” she cried.  
“You know Twilight, it’d help if you weren’t standing in the horse trough.” Big Macintosh said in his thick western accent. She looked down and saw that she was in fact standing in the horse trough, she had teleported to Sweet Apple Acres without giving extreme detail of where in the farm, she could have easily ended up on top of the barn roof rather that soaked in water.  
“Oh, sorry big mac...” she apologised as she stepped out and shook her legs dry.  
“Spikes helping Rarity give people some things to do, I had just heard about Rarity helping and Spike was then desperate to join in.” Twilight chuckled, typical Spike.  
“What have you been told you’re doing?” Twilight walked up to Drakes right side as Big Mac was on his left.  
“I’ve been given the labour work of putting screws and nails into wood and cutting them down to the right size, then big mac lifts them up and I bolt them together.” He was very enthusiastic about the whole thing.  
“Well, I saw a dark creature and I’m not leaving until you’re done.” She said like she was the mother of Drake.  
“If that’s ok with Big Mac.” Drake said as he picked up a hammer and a bucket of nails.  
“Eyup.” Big Mac nodded and Twilight watched as Drake and Big Mac worked with Applejack to raise the timber and secure them in place, Big mac used a winch and pulley system to raise the timber, Applejack used her lasso to hold in in place while Drake used his hammer and some very long nails to secure it in place.  
The team had already built the frame of a house and had started on the second.  
“Big Mac, can you pull those timbers for a bit longer?” Applejack was getting frustrated.  
“I’ma going as fast as I can sis!” he yelled back.  
“Well it’s certainly not fast enough ya slow poke!”  
“Stop yelling!”  
“Applejack?” Drake asked quietly.  
“If we had two of me we’d be done by now!” Applejack had walked up to her big brother and was giving him a mouthful.  
“Stop being so big headed!”  
“Applejack?” Drake asked a bit louder.  
“Not now…Why can’t you be a bit more enthusiastic about this?” Applejack was taking it a bit far now.  
“Why can’t you just give it a rest!”  
“Applejack?” Drake had a tiny bit of annoyance in his voice now.  
“Just get those timbers up quickly!”  
“APPLEJACK!” Drake yelled.  
“WHAT?” she bellowed.  
“Do your trees have eyes?” he now had fear in his voice that had replaced the annoyance.  
“What? What kind of dumb question is that?” she replied, Twilight Sparkle had drifted off to sleep next to the barn in the sunlight and stirred as Drake had been yelling to get Applejacks attention.  
“Because if they don’t, then that’s freaky.” He pointed at the dark trees that opened to the Everfree forest, a pair of yellow eyes with tiny red spots as pupils stared out at them in the dark woods.  
Unblinking and unmoving made Drake think that he had mistaken them for eyes when they were something else but his body shivered violently and so did Applejack when they slowly closed and opened, then with a flash and what could only be described as a sparkle of sound they were gone.   
“W…what in the h…hay was t…that?” she shook from side to side.  
“No idea…I’ve never been in there before.” He had just noticed how his hands were shaking now, he stuffed them into his pocket to try and hide it.  
“I…I think we can take it from here Drake, we’re mighty appreciative of your help.” She tipped her western hat to him and now Drake wanted one just like that.  
“Make sure you keep yourselves safe and inform the Princess about getting some guards around here.” He laughed and AJ giggled as well, it was a half-hearted giggle but it was nice to see her at least trying to sound happy. Whatever that was in the forest it didn’t look right, and certainly made AJ feel uneasy.  
“Psst, Twilight, we’re done now.” He knelt down beside her as she slept in a sunray that gently fell through a large hole in the Apples barn. She became startled as Drake poked her in the side to try and wake her gently.  
“WHAT!” she jumped up suddenly and Drake jumped back as she became edgy.  
“Twilight it’s alright, we can go home now.” He reassured her, after a few seconds, she found herself to know where she was and became quite calm.  
“Oh, sorry Drake, just a bad dream that’s all.” She breathed slowly and stood up as she had fallen back down. “Any other pony you said you’d help today?”  
“Nope, I’m free for the rest of the day now, but I said I’d teach Rainbow dash to dance tomorrow, and then on Friday I’m heading up to Canterlot to talk to Princess Celestia about the music for the Grand Galloping Gala, I have to say, that is going to be epic!” he punched the air as they left Sweet Apple Acres.  
“I know, she’s my mentor, something like that won’t get by me that easily.” She laughed; soon they were back in the main part of ponyville.   
“Any shopping?” he asked, he really just wanted to go home now, and he ached right down to his bones.  
“Nope, we can head home and you REALLY need a bath.” She looked at his, what had, been spiky black hair and saw the mud, saw dust and sweat, not a pretty sight to say the least.  
“Fine then.” He moaned.  
“You’re not going to bed like that, I honestly think I might just throw you out the window.” She laughed hard and Drake laughed with her, the ponies around must have thought that they were weird; Drake looked like a human version of Applejack as he wore the same work clothes as her but he had black hair.


	10. Detonation!

The weekend had arrived and Drake was exhausted, rainbow Dash had rocked at dancing and had now organised a flight with him for next week, but if he could stand at all was a different matter, even though he and Twilight were on the train up to Canterlot for the third second time in 3 days.  
“Oh this is really exciting now, just think; in less than a month you’ll be playing music for the biggest event in pony history.” Twilight had joined Drake to Canterlot, he had however invited Pinkie Pie as well and was not thinking it was the best thing to do, she was jumping across him and staring out the window the whole journey and hopping back to her aisle seat every few seconds every time she could see something.  
“Ooh look! Cows, they’re so black and white, like a panda! Oh my gosh, have you even noticed how many words rhyme with panda? Like…cer…vanda…” she slowed down to think of a word and ended up making something up.  
“You just made that up.” Twilight pointed out, Drake had a face that said ‘you don’t say?’  
“Maybe I di…ooh ooh! Look! TREES!” she exclaimed.  
“Pinkie please, just sit still for a bit, everypony is looking at us.” Drake hushed to her. That train, unlike last time, was packed full of ponies apart from the seat that was beside Twilight, Pinkie Pie sat on the aisle seat next to Drake who had to lean back to keep allowing Pinkie to smack into the glass every few seconds  
“Wait a minute? Pinkie Pie sitting still? I don’t think that’s possible.” Twilight said in a high voice.  
“Oh yeah? Watch this!” she said loudly and sat in her seat very still, Drake found it very hard not to blow in her ear at this time.  
“I bet you a hug you can’t go the whole journey without jumping around.” Drake jeered at her, she looked at him with squinted eyes.  
“Challenge accepted.” They shook hand and hoof on it.  
Pinkie actually did her best to get that hug from Drake, the last time he hugged her he was crying tears of happiness, so this time was purely just for sharing kindness.  
She cracked when they pulled into the train station of Canterlot.  
“OH MY GOSH! WE’RE IN CANTERLOT! IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL!” she bounced off her seat and face planted the window.  
“Oh dear Pinkie, looks like no hug for you.” Twilight giggled as she stepped off the coach with everypony else and waited for Drake who stepped off the coach carrying Pinkie Pie in his arms.  
“HAH! I got a hug after all!” she sneered as Drake walked in front so Pinkie had her head over his shoulder.  
One of the Princesses guards were waiting to escort Drake and his friends to Canterlot castle, it wasn't too far but he carried Pinkie all the way, her hair smelt like candy floss and cake icing and it smelt delicious to him. She hummed a tune all the way there and so it was stuck in Drakes head as he too was humming along.  
“What are you humming?” Twilight whispered up to Drake.  
“No idea.” He whispered back down to her.  
“You are odd.” The guard interrupted.  
“Wait till you get to know me even more, I’ll end up turning you insane.” The guard laughed at his speech. “Why does everypony think I’m joking?” he asked himself in a hushed voice.  
The castle soon came into view and Drake set Pinkie Pie down who lent to one side and almost fell over if she hadn’t caught Drakes leg and almost pulled him down as well.  
“The princess has been called to the south along with her royal sister, she has left the sound equipment in the marque outside in the royal garden for you.” The guard boomed and left Drake, Pinkie and Twilight to make their way to the white marque, it was tall enough for 15 ponies to stand on top of each other and still have room to jump, it had white veils that fell to the green grass and his the interior from sight.  
They pushed it open and saw a huge mass of tangled wires, many small speakers, four large speakers and two massive speakers and a dj turntable.  
“That’s a lot of wires.” Twilight exclaimed as she floated the huge tangled mess over to her using magic and began to figure out where one wire ended and the other began; she was very good at sorting things out.  
Drake had walked over to one of the huge speakers and began to circle it many times before saying.  
“This thing hasn’t been used in ages.” He wiped his hand along the top and looking at his palm, he could see that it was covered in dust.  
“Well duh! Those haven’t been used since I was a titchy itty bitty pinkie winkie pie.” She said in a cutesy voice.  
“Twi, can you unscrew the side of this please?” Drake called over to her, she was doing a great job of untangling the cables, she already had five very long power cables stretched out along the entire marque. She sighed and her horn glowed, the screws popped out and Drake thanked her as he wrenched the side of the speaker off.  
Dust burst from inside and caused them all to gasp and cough violently. It died down and the inside of the speaker case full caked in the stuff.  
“The princess did mention that they haven’t been used in a while.” Twilight used a spell to clear the dust from her mane.  
“HAH! Not a while my arse, this thing has been left to rot for a good few decades looking at this dust.” He tried to laugh but the dust was far too terrible to laugh at. “Get me a hoover.”  
The entire time had been Drake cleaning out both speakers, Twilight had sorted out all the wires and Pinkie Pie sat staring upside down and Drake and cracking jokes that made them all laugh.  
Suddenly a loud wailing sound made Twilight and Drake look up and, she ran out of the tent and left Drake with a puzzled look on his face.  
“What is that sound?” he called out as he ran after her. Pinkie pie had been playing with some headphones that were plugged into Drakes MP3 player and didn’t hear the siren and didn’t see them run out of the tent.  
“La Di Da, I am eating cupcakes now.” She made up lyrics for the song she was listening to. Her tail flicked to the beat of the music and her front hooves tapped on the ground along with her tail flicks.  
Drake through the marque flap over him and flew under it to see Twilight Sparkle darting around the corner of the white castle, he charged after her and crashed into her because she had suddenly stopped.  
“You ponies need bells or something on you.” He said as he rubbed his leg, all the guards had left the castle and were now standing a good distance away from it.  
“You there!” Twilight shouted to one of the more prestige looking guards; he was defiantly one of the guards that were in charge.  
“Stop running…” Drake said in a quiet and annoyed voice.  
“Why has the evacuation siren been sounded?” she asked and tried to sound as tough as her tiny purple body would let her.  
“This is official royal business.” He sounded a lot stronger than poor Twilight did. It could have been that Twilight had enough of being thought of as small, or that she was tired from the day’s work, maybe it was even that just wanted to know what was going on but what happened next even scared Drake; and he had witnessed the internet.  
Her whole body suddenly ignited into flames, her purple mane exploded into terrifying hot white flames and so did her tail, her purple body became engulfed in ravenous red flames and her voice became the tone of a demented and vicious monster.  
“I AM THE PRINCESSES TOP STUDENT OF MAGIC! NOW YOU TELL ME WHAT THE EMERGENCY CONCERNING HER SUBJECTS IS!” she exploded with rage and the guard fell to the floor in fright, Drake staggered as soon as the heat hit him.  
“W…we don’t k…know…the a…alarm just went off.” He cried, it was hilarious to see a serious and tough guard who had just told Twilight Sparkle to butt out of things that didn’t concern her fall to the floor and panic.  
As quickly as she became a flaming pony, her body cooled down to it’s normal state with a hissing sound.  
“I might be able to tell you.” A snooty nose pony smirked as he lent on the large arch that was the castle huge doors into the main hall. He was about the same size as Twilight and had purple hair and a lime green tail, his coat was patched in different sections and in different colours. His eyes were just specks of luminous red dots, just like the ones Drake had spotted at Sweet Apple Acres. His flank was covered in cuts by so much that his cutie mark couldn’t be seen by the amount of hanging flesh, missing flesh and dried blood.  
“Who are you?” Drake was now the one to shout.  
“I’m merely a servant of the world…and if I’m a servant…” he was reciting a saying from a game in Drakes world and he knew what part would come next.  
“We are no way in Equestria noted as tools.” He smirked and the purple haired pony’s smile wiped off his face faster than Rainbow Dash could fly. “How do you know those words? And don’t tell me it’s a coincidence.” He took a step towards the odd pony but just as he tried to jump onto him the huge doors slammed shut and Drake banged on them to try and break them; but there was no way he’d be able to do it.  
TIK TIK…  
“We need to get in there…” the guard ordered to his platoon.  
“Those doors won’t budge even if you can get all your soldiers together…Drake, stop hugging the door!” Twilight yelled, Drake the side of his head against the double door, his black hair flopped against it.  
TIK TIK TIK…  
“I’m not hugging it…” his voice died to a murmur as he tried to listen to the ticking he could hear on the other side.  
“I cant believe this…” one of the other guards was talking to his friend.  
“I know how you feel, and we had just got the gunpowder for the fireworks, I love making them you see…ARGH!” he jumped as Drake shot towards him.  
“Did you say…gunpowder?”  
“Yea, my dad’s a firework creator and my cutie mark…Oh hi miss Pie.” The guard sat up as he saw a pink pony walking towards him.  
“You left me! I was sitting on my own!” she yelled at Drake, thankfully she didn’t burst into flames like Twilight did.  
“Yes, I apologise Pinkie…but how much gunpowder?” he turned his attention back to the guard.  
“Enough for an entire nights brilliant firework display.” He spoke with an excited tone.  
Drake began to piece all the things together. Ticking…gunpowder…ticking…gunpowder…a mad looking pony…  
“Crap…” his eyes widened as his heart began to race and he felt terrified for lives were at stack now.  
“What?” Twilight asked.  
“EVERYPONY RUN! THERE’S A BOMB IN THE CASTLE!” Drake yelled at the top of his voice and cupped his hands to his mouth so his voice reached all the guards. The guard that had informed him of the gunpowder had pieced the large amounts of gunpowder together with the mad looking pony and yelled to everypony that it was a good chance that there was a bomb.  
The guards platoon ran from the castles grounds, followed swiftly by Drake, Twilight and Pinkie Pie.  
They had just reached the castles maze and statue garden when a huge fireball rocked their world, they were sent sprawling forwards and landed in a heap of each other as the castle was detonated. Flames soared from the windows and the roofs were lifted high and then collapsed in on themselves. The castle had just been used as a giant pipe bomb.  
“WHAT’S HAPPENED?” Pinkie yelled.  
“WHAT?” Twilight yelled back, a very loud ringing was in hers and everypony else’s ears.  
“IS EVERYPONY ALRIGHT?” Drake stood up and suddenly fell back down in the mud, he fell onto his back and saw from an upside down view of the white castle that was now billowing out with thick black smoke, the fire had spread to every single part of the castle now and now it was nothing but flaming ruins that would have to be destroyed for health and safety reasons…did ponies even have health and safety?  
The guards were now on their feet and helped Drake to his feet again, he couldn’t take in that just a few days ago he was dining with the Princesses in that castle, and now it was ablaze with vicious flames and black smoke.  
Twilight, you’ve been through a lot today, I’m putting my foot down and telling you that you’re not sending a letter to the Princess.” Drake had taken Twilight home and refused to let her write a letter to the Princess to tell her what she learnt about friendship.  
“But she needs to know!” she cried.  
“Twilight, I don’t know if you realised, but she’s homeless and I don’t want to be rude but I don’t think she cares if you learn something this week, because she can’t live anywhere.” He argued with her.  
She looked like she was about to cry and Drake now felt bad.  
“I’m sorry for shouting Twi, but you have to see it from Princess Celestia’s point of view. Her home has burnt to the ground by some mad pony. She can’t look at the letters right now.” He knelt down beside her and held her for a bit in a small hug.  
“We should help her at least though.” She looked up at him, her purple eyes sparkling.  
“She knows that we are by her side for the whole fight.” She stared at him.  
“What fight?” he stood up and walked over to the second floor window, at this angle he could see the ruins of Canterlot castle still smoking heavily.  
“That alarm caused everypony to evacuate and nopony got hurt right?” he turned to face her and leant on the glass, she nodded to him. “Then that means that the Princesses would have been evacuated as well, so if they wanted to kill them and it was treason, then they would have made sure that the alarm wasn't sounded. They did all that just to scare us.” He looked down at his black shoes, they were scratched and scuffed; Rarity wouldn’t be happy.  
“We had a problem like this on my world…well, it was actually a fiction movie but it’s got all the hallmarks of chaos.”  
“What happened in the end?” she took a step closer to him and waited a long pause for Drake to reply.  
“A lot of people died.” He said in a chocked voice, he didn’t dare think of who would die if that would echo through this world.  
A knocking at the door caused Twilight to pop downstairs and see who it was. She was talking to somepony and then shouted up to Drake.  
“Drake! It’s Princess Celestia!” she called up, he returned to watching the smoke billow from the castle ruins.  
“Some men just want to watch the world burn.” He recited to himself before joining Twilight and the white alicorn downstairs.


	11. A Speaker Fancy

It was now midnight in the library, the moonlight shone through the windows and a cool breeze ruffled the dry leaves outside. Twilight sparkle was lying in her bed with her star night sky blanket covering her up to her chin, her head rested on her white pillow to the right side and she was slightly dribbling as she dreamt the terrible day away.   
Spike was in his small basket bed and was also dreaming, but his dreams were about food and Rarity rather than brilliant magical lessons that Twilight was dreaming of.  
The only unnatural light was a lit candle that danced wildly around in the entrance room of the library on a small table with a large stack of blank paper, the wooden statue of a horse’s head had been moved temporarily a few days ago and been placed on the floor in front of one of the bookshelves. The few sounds were coming from a quill that was scratching on paper and the occasional yawn from Drake, his black hair was no longer spikey as it now laid flat, his eyes were baggy and his fingertips were black from the ink.  
Princess Celestia on the other hoof wasn't too good herself, she too had been up all night and although she didn’t hold the quill as she used magic to move it, the light from her horn flickered occasionally and it made the quill either move slower or shoot across the page leaving a thick black line running across the words. She also had bags under her eyes but her mane still flowed with brilliance.  
“Mark down page 546.” Princess Celestia whispered to Drake as to not wake Twilight or Spike.  
“Already done it.” He whispered back and took the purple paged book that she had pushed across the floor towards him and placed it on a small pile to his right.  
“Found anything useful in A History Of Equestria?” she asked as Drake blinked rapidly to clear the fogginess from his eyes, they refused to focus on the words in front of him, even Princess Celestia had a bit of trouble trying to read her books.  
“No…but I can feel it we’re so close to figuring this out…” he flicked a page too quickly and got a paper cut on his index finger, he sucked it as the blood dripped out slowly. “We should probably sleep before we cut ourselves further.” He stood up from the wooden floor slowly, his knees cracked and the Princess winced at the sound of it.  
She breathed deeply and stood up to go to her bed which had been Drakes but he had given it up voluntarily for her, he was now sleeping on the lower floor in a small sleeping bag until Twilight could buy another bed for him but he wasn’t complaining one bit, he was just happy that he was still allowed to be with Twilight Sparkle.  
Princess Celestia made sure that she was very quiet as she crept up the stairs and tucked herself into bed. From her warm and cosy black bed she could see Drake tidying up loose bits of paper and organising books into piles of six, her eye lids began to pull themselves down and soon she was drifting off to sleep.  
Spike was the first to wake up; he uncoiled himself from under his blanket and stretched. Twilight was still sleeping in; she usually woke up a half hour after Spike gets up, they had been in that routine since they had moved to ponyville and defeated nightmare moon.  
He looked over to his right and saw that Princess Celestia was still asleep with a small green book by her bed with a yellow bookmark in it. One of the pillows from the bed had fallen to the floor and bent into an L shape as it fell against the leg of the bed. Spike picked the book up and made his way downstairs to see where Drake was, but as he got to the last step with the book under his scaly arm and rubbing his eyes with his free hand he tripped over a heavy mass of wires and landed flat on his face.  
“Oh dear Spike, are you ok?” Drake rushed over to him and helped him to his feet, spike didn’t mind that he tripped but was more concerned about that the book marker had slipped out of Princess Celestia’s book.  
“Yes I’m fine Drake, but wh…what…what have you done???” Spike was speechless as he looked around the library, power leads, wires and metallic components were dangling everywhere with parts of speakers and soldering irons with solder wires were dumped on and around the tables.   
“Oh, this? I was up at night thinking that the speakers were destroyed in the fire at the castle, and anything that wasn't burnt would have defiantly been warped by the heat…” drake picked up a speaker with wires hanging out of it and fused the ends of it to a power source, this being a three pin plug.  
“Please…please don’t say what I think you are going to say…” Spike covered his ears.  
“…so I decided to make one.” Drake had fused the wires to a plug and another grey wire to a 3.5 mm jack input and inserted it into his mp3 player.  
“Oh sweet Celestia, Twilight is going to hit the roof when she sees this…” Spike whined.  
“Please do stop moaning spike and make yourself useful and help me move this box.” Drake was pushing a very large box that scraped the floor and left marks.  
“Oh dear…Twilight will feed me to the lions if she sees this before…” Spike droned on and on with Drake ignoring his moans. “Why is this thing so heavy?”  
“Because of this.” Drake pulled an orange crowbar with a red apple sign on the end from underneath the table that was covered in wires and tore the front off the box that revealed the biggest speaker spike had ever seen, it must have been about 1.5 the size of Princess Celestia.   
“I didn’t know they made speakers that loud.” Spike grunted as he and Drake lifted the speaker out of its box and next to a dual power outlet in the wall, Drake continued to solder the power and the speaker together.  
“They don’t, I had to get this custom made for the Grand Galloping Gala…”  
“Speaking of which, how are we going to host the Grand Galloping Gala without the castle?” Spike interrupted him.  
Drake stopped wiring things together and began to think about that for a bit.  
“Well…we could always host in in ponyville…I dunno, ask the Princess.” Spike ran up the stairs. “When she wakes up.” Drake said through gritted teeth.  
It was an hour later and Drake had finished the power supply to the stupidly big speakers, Spike had done his best to clean up before Twilight rose and would go berserk about the mess. He put the spare wires in a neat bundle and tied the loose ones together so tripping over them would be less of a problem.  
But she was still speechless when she woke up and saw the giant speaker in her living room.  
“What is that doing here?” she asked in a hushed voice as she bolted down the stairs and interrogated Drake about the monstrosity.  
“Vinyl Scratch sent it to me from her cousins music shop, Derpy delivered it here and I couldn’t just tell her to take it away, she had to lug that thing from the train station; she’s a Pegasus and not that strong like Big Mac.” Drake explained to her, Twilight sighed at this and dropped her head close to the floor.  
“But why did you order it in the first place?” Twilight sounded like she was choosing her words carefully as she spoke slowly.  
“Well, the better the sound, the more intense it will be, thing is; the castle is gone so it’ll have to be outside I guess so the sound doesn’t have any restrictions.” He said in a gleeful voice.  
“Are you going to make everypony go deaf?” Twilight asked in a monotone.  
“Not until the good music is over.” He laughed and plugged in the giant speaker and made sure that the 3.5mm jack input was connected to his mp3 player, he flicked a small safety covered missile switch on a large console that was also connected to the speaker, it gave a small hollow thud and the speaker began to hum gently.  
“What are you doing?” Twilight asked him as she returned from upstairs to fetch a brush to comb her mane down.  
“Testing the sound.” He said as the lights flickered slightly, this made Twilight and Spike nervous.  
“Erm…Drake?” Twilight pocked him with her brush.  
“Yea?” he replied without looking at her.  
“How much power does that thing need?” she asked.  
“I don’t know, but I will say this.” He paused to turn to her with his blue mp3 player in his right hand connected to the speaker. “In my world the strongest a speaker can go to is 7.1…this thing can go all the way up to 50.1.” he smiled and before Twilight and Spike could stop him, he pressed play.  
Far away from the main town of ponyville, the cloud home that belonged to Rainbow Dash floated gently with its rainbows flowing gracefully down to a small pool on the lower level.  
Inside, a cyan blue pony was still sleeping in, her bedroom consisted of a cloud with a blue cover on top with a close resemblance of her cutie mark on it, a large stack of books sat beside her; her entire collection of daring doo. She was snoring loudly and woke suddenly to the birds singing outside her window.  
“Fluttershy, please keep your birds quiet…” she said to herself as a sort of small reminder to tell the yellow Pegasus pony later. She flopped her head back down onto the pillow and let her mind wander as she pulled her cover up to her neck and quickly flipped it over so it was nice and cold, it began to quickly heat up from her body heat but she liked that.  
She began to imagine herself saving the world with daring doo and the wonder bolts cheering her as she did so.  
Her ear drums were burning as massive amounts of bass shook her home and the books fell down with enormous amounts of music tunes caused her to cover her ears with her hoofs quickly  
“THIS IS RADIO HARDCORE! READY TO DANCE! RADIO HARDCORE! ON PARTY FREQUENCE!” the music blasted into her home and she jumped out of the way as she bed flopped into a heap on the floor.   
The music stopped as quickly as it started, her ears were ringing and her mind was doing flips from the sudden moving and sudden waking up.  
She flew outside with a slight limp as one of hers wings were still asleep.  
She looked around and didn’t see the source of the sound but ponyville could be heard screaming and shouting so she flew there as fast as she could.  
The library had shuffled a lot due to the bass of the music and all the books had fallen off the bookshelves and all over the floor, Twilight Sparkle was screaming at Drake but he couldn’t hear a thing.  
“YOU DAMN IDIOT!”  
“WHAT?”  
“I SAID YOU ARE AN IDIOT!”  
“WHAT?”  
The ringing in Drakes ears stopped instantly as she yelled straight into them again.  
“IDIOT!”  
“ARGH!” he screamed and covered his ears with his hands.  
“I fear that the town may have been hurt as well.” The Princess staggered down the stairs and flew down the last step and knocked a picture off the wall with her right wing, her horn lost its glow and Twilight could hear her without any ringing.  
“Sorry Princess, did we wake you?” Twilight asked a bowed down to her, to which Princess Celestia shook her head.  
“You didn’t Twilight Sparkle, but I think Drake may have.” She smiled at Drake who was leaning against the speaker and pulled the plug on its power supply.  
“Sorry about that, just had to test it for the three G’s.” Drake wound up the leads while Princess Celestia was having her mane brushed by a sneaky Twilight Sparkle.  
“We need to talk that over actually, I’m not sure how to hold it…” Princess Celestia began.  
“Hold it outside just like we do for Nightmare Night.” Drake interrupted her, Twilight snapped a nasty glare at him, nopony dared to interrupt the Princess before.  
“I guess that could work.” Princess Celestia wondered and planned it briefly in her head.  
“I’ll start writing up a play list for the music.” Drake smiled but was almost sent flying as the front door blew open and Rainbow Dash came charging into the library, knocking many books off their shelves.  
“Twilight! Drake! Princ….AH! I’m so sorry Princess.” Rainbow dash gave a low bow in mid air to the Princess as soon as she saw her. Princess Celestia thanked her and welcomed her in, Twilight lent R.D her manebrush as her mane was sticking up in places and looked incredibly scruffy.  
“Sorry about my mane Twi, but I rushed here when I heard some horrible noise that woke me up from my sleep.” She was still in the air as she held her tail and brushed it until it looked neat and she would call it ‘awesome.’  
“Sorry, that was me…” Drake admitted as Rainbow Dash let the brush droop from her hoof and clatter onto the floor.  
“You…you woke me?” she asked, her eye twitched in a psycho kind of way. Twilight got closer to the ground and covered her head.  
“I was testing the speaker.” He quickly pointed to the large speaker that just sat there.  
Rainbow Dash was now scowling and hovering right on top of him, she was almost growling and steam pouring from her nostrils.  
“Is it…awesome?” she asked.  
“Very…” he replied. It was a bit of a stand-off, but Rainbow Dash was joking because her tone was giggling.  
“Is it…big?” she giggled, he eyes closed half way and she was snorting.  
“It’s HUGE.” Drake giggled as well and stretched his arms out far to signal its length.  
Rainbow Dash burst into fits of laughter but still maintained her flight.  
“Do you mind keeping it down then?” she stopped laughing and landed on the floor and was now looking up at him.  
“Sure thing.” He smiled to her and nodded.  
“Thank you.” She turned her attention to Twilight. “Twi, I was wondering if you and the Princess wanted me to help with the Grand Galloping Gala.” She was smiling greatly at the thought of doing a sonic rain boom for them.  
“Yes as a matter of fact Rainbow Dash you can.” The Princess butted in. Rainbow dash bowed again and smiled the whole time the Princess spoke, her smile got larger and larger when she was closing her sentence. “We were hoping that you could perform your legendary sonic rainboom when Drake’s music track hits the right mark which we tell you when he finishes the tracks. I will send fireworks up and they will sparkle alongside your sonic rainboom.” Rainbow dash’s smile was now from ear to ear.  
“I won’t let you down Princess!” she yelled and flew out of the library and high into the air, she slowed her acceleration to altitude and began to look over the beautiful scenery that was ponyville.  
But there was a certain white unicorn hiding underneath one of the library’s windows that nopony even noticed, it had a purple mane and lime green tail with its cutie mark slashed off.  
“So, they are holding the Grand Galloping Gala outside then hmm? Well then, I guess we need to bring our glorious leader back in time for cake then.” He spoke in a deep and nasty way, and with a flash of his white horn he disappeared into a green cloud of smoke.


	12. Fluttered Attack

“Twilight, I’m going to return this book to Fluttershy, I’ll only be about half an hour, I want to get it to her before sunrise tomorrow.” Drake picked up a small yellow book titled "How to care for your squirrel." He was expecting either Twilight to say no to his request, or for a really cheesy joke from the sun princess about the sunrise, but Twilight just waved her hoof at him and didn’t even look at him when he left through the door.  
Ponyville was very quiet at this time of night, it wasn't as pretty as seeing it high above the clouds though, he still remembered that time when Princess Luna had done that for him.  
The town square was deserted apart from a small pony that ran when she heard Drakes footsteps getting closer, he heard somepony slam their front door and another slam their windows shut, and he looked to the sound origin and saw a light yellow pony pulling their curtains to a close in a rude way.  
He heard a swooping sound and felt a whack in his thigh as a cyan blue pony landed beside him with multi-coloured mane and tail, her deep purple eyes met his and she jabbed him with her wing.  
“What’s up Drake? I thought you of all creatures would be asleep by now at least.” Her voice made him feel like at least he wasn't walking through a street of darkness without a candle.  
“I’m just returning a book to fluttershy that Twilight wanted to borrow.” He waved the book in mid-air to show it and then tucked it back under his arm.  
“At this hour?” she glanced at the clock tower, 11:15.  
“Twilight has the Princess over for a bit and it felt weird with me just standing there…besides, I like the night sky.” He smiled at the darkness that was the night.  
“Wait…the Princess is in Ponyville?” Rainbow Dash flattened her mane in an attempt to look presentable.  
“Just to visit, nothing royal don’t worry.” He reached down and ruffled her mane in a brisk manner.  
“Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know what happened at the castle do you? Nopony will tell me.” She pouted and stuck her lower lip out. Drake stopped immediately and bent down next to her.  
“Promise you wont tell any pony else?” he whispered.  
“I swear to Celestia…”  
“Swear to me.” He whispered in a rough voice, he always wanted to say that.  
“Yes alright, now what happened?” she was extremely eager to hear what happened.  
“There was this alarm and all the guards had gathered outside the castle, the Princesses had gone somewhere else so they weren’t there to start with.” Rainbow was listening carefully to everything that Drake was saying. “And then this crazy looking pony was inside the castle and then…BOOM.” She jumped a little when he finished. “Is nopony talking about?” he thought that it would be the only thing they’d be talking about.  
“Well they are talking about it, but nopony can give a straight answer.” She stretched her wings and yawned a bit.  
“Well there you go, now don’t go telling anypony because I don’t think I should have let it slip anyway.” Rainbow dash pretended to zip her mouth. “Fluttershy’s house isn’t too far from here, I want to get back before it gets late…”  
“You mean before it gets early.” She corrected him.  
“You’re blowing my mind.” He put his hands to his head and laughed, she did so as well.  
It wasn't long until they reached Fluttershys house, Drake hadn’t seen much of Fluttershy apart from a time when he went to meet Pinkie Pie at sugar cube corner and Fluttershy was buying a cupcake for her bunny which Drake couldn’t understand why. But she had shot off as soon as he tried to talk to her.  
Drake knocked on fluttershy’s door and then proceeded to lean against her fence.  
“She’s probably asleep, it is late and she goes to bed early…she’s such a light head.” Rainbow Dash mentioned.  
“Thing is we’re here now, I don’t want to have to go home and then come back later tomorrow. Just a waste of time really.” Drake yawned and was tapping his feet impatiently, he banged harder on the door. “Fluttershy it’s Drake and Rainbow Dash!” as soon as he announced himself there was a loud clatter of metal, and then about seven seconds of unbolting and chains being taken down, her door slowly creaked open to reveal fluttershy standing in the darkness, her pink mane was flopped over one side of her face and left only one of her aqua blue eyes to be seen, her yellow body shook as she yawned.  
“Oh…hello Drake, and hello Rainbow Dash…what are you two doing here? It’s still dark.” Drake found her undoubtedly the cutest pony he had seen in Equestria, she just had to speak and he wanted to squeeze her till she popped with cuteness.  
“Twilight wanted me to drop this book off for you.” He handed the book over to Fluttershy who took the with a hoof and thanked them, but just as she was about to shut the door, her mane got caught on the side and it brushed her face into the open, her yellow face was bruised with black eye on her left side. Drake took no hesitation in jamming the door open with his right foot and stepped a bit closer to her and bent down. “Fluttershy, have you been hurt?”  
“No…”  
“That looks like a black eye to my Flutters.” Rainbow agreed with Drake, she was hurt.  
“It’s…er…” she shyed away and looked close to tears.  
“Fluttershy, who did this?” Drake was not leaving until he knew.  
“He said he would come back if I said.” She murmured; tears fell from her eyes and onto the floor.  
“AHA! So we know it’s a he.” Rainbow dash scratched her chin.  
“Yea, that narrows it down to…ooh, I don’t know, half the population.” Drake bounced at her with. “Fluttershy, we won’t hurt him or anything, I pinkie swear, we just want to tell him that he should apologise” he made all the right movements with his hand by mimicking wings on his back and then putting a hand over his right eye.  
“Well…I don’t know his name, but he was a unicorn with a white body, purple mane and…”  
“Lime green tail and small red eyes?” he finished her sentence, her eyes widened when he described her attacker.  
“Yea, you saw him?” she took a tiny step forward.  
“He’s dead.” Drake said in a toneless and cold voice, Rainbow Dash looked at Drake with horror.  
“What happened?” she asked.  
“He blew himself up, he’s the one that destroyed the castle on Sunday.” He ran his fingers through his hair and was glad that he wouldn’t have to deal with him.  
“But…but this was yesterday, that castle blew up two days ago.” Fluttershy replied.  
“Impossible, he wouldn’t have survived that.”  
“I’m sorry Drake…maybe I was wrong…” she took three steps back inside.  
“Drake look!” Rainbow bashed into him as she flew, Fluttershys house wasn't that far from the local school and it could be seen quite easily, but they were not looking at the school, but more about the white unicorn that was popping up inside it, it had a purple mane and a green tail but it was enough for Drake to burst into a full on sprint towards to school.  
“Slow down!” Rainbow dash called after him, Drake ignored her and leapt the fence around the school in a hurdle, he skidded along the grass and slipped against the wall of the school just below a window, RD joined him in the same position below the window on the other side of the front door.  
“What are we going to do?” she whispered.  
“You’re not coming with me, you need to do the right thing and go fetch the Princess and Twilight from the library now.” He whispered back.  
“But what about you?”   
“I’m about to do the wrong thing and probably get killed in the fight.” He smiled evilly at her.  
“You pinkie swore that you wouldn’t hurt him.” She didn’t really want to leave Drake on his own with a unicorn that should be burnt to a crisp in Canterlot.  
“And I’m sure Pinkie Pie would break her promise in the same circumstances.”  
“You can tell her that then.” She pointed a hoof at him.  
“Tomorrow, I’m not doing anymore late night visits.” He looked around the floor and picked up a steel pipe that was as long as his arm and gripped it tightly in both hands. “Go!” he whispered loudly at her, she took off quickly and flew towards the library. “Here goes.” He stood up and walked to the door, opening it would give away the surprise, so he lifted his right foot up and tightened his grip on the pole.  
CRASH!  
The door flew off its hinges and he barged into the dark class room, all the tables including the teachers had been pushed up against the wall and he searched around for a light switch or a candle for a source of light but there was nothing there.  
“Come out.” He called to the darkness.  
“Why? You going to whack me?” a sickening voice rang from the roof and straight down Drakes spine.  
“You hurt my friend. You’ve got what’s coming to you.” He tapped the pipe against his shoe; it was ruined by the grass. “How did you survive the castle?” he had to know.  
“Wasn't me, but another one of the stern witch’s enemies.”  
“A clan?”  
“Hmm, yes you could say that.” The voice cracked a bit.  
“How many?” he asked.  
“How many bananas?” the voice joked.  
“How many of there are you in this clan?” he snarled.  
“Oh loads and it’s not just in ponyville, we’re everywhere, all over Equestria, where you find somepony who wants Celestia gone, and we’re there.” The voice gave a shrill laugh and the crows flew up from the grounds and into the night sky.  
“I happen to care for the Princess, so you’re dealing with the wrong human here.” He growled at the roof, he tried desperately to find some sort of pony just hiding up in the rafters.  
“But did you know that humans used to live here? Before Celestia arrived, now you should ask.” With a loud bang, the white unicorn slammed into the back of Drake and sent him crashing into the black board cracking it in half. “Why did they leave?” his eyes were as red as the castles fire and he had jagged black hooves that had been sliced upon. His cutie mark also had been gouged out and was left with a flat patch of blank white skin.  
He snatched up the steel pole that lay a few feet from him and tried to lunge at the unicorn to land hit, but once again the unicorn disappeared with a loud band.  
“The Princess is on her way as we falter here, you won’t last long when she arrives and sees that you hurt Fluttershy.” He tried to see where he had gone but couldn’t see in the dark.  
“Oh that wasn't me, but it was funny to watch her cry out.” The blood in Drake began to boil with rage and furry. “Oh…please no…I won’t tell anypony.” He gave another shrill laugh and Drake burned with anger to an intense level like he had never felt before.  
“Come and fight.” His voice came out as a vicious growl.  
“Don’t have much of a choice do i? if the Princess is on her way, I need to kill you as quickly as possible.” With another bang he appeared in front of Drake and sparks flew from his white horn, it flew down the pole and straight into Drake, he shrugged it off and managed to land a deafening blow to the unicorns face, he crashed to the floor and Drake brought the pole down once more only to find the unicorn gone and the pole jammed into the floor. “You’re a nasty human aren’t you? Can’t see what the sun girl has done to you?”  
“SHE IS A PRINCESS YOU FREAK!” he yelled and wrenched the pole out of the wooden floor.  
Suddenly and without warning, the unicorn bolted out of the darkness and smashed into Drake, he went flying backwards and out the door.  
High above the clouds, Princess Celestia and a fleet of 20 royal guards were charging towards the school in Ponyville directly after hearing from Rainbow Dash about the unicorn that had attacked Fluttershy and destroyed her home.   
The school came into view just as a loud cry rang across the town, “SHE IS A PRINCESS YOU FREAK!”  
“Princess! I fear we may be too late!” one of the royal guards screamed to her, she broke from the circle formation that was protecting her and dive bombed straight towards the schools grounds just to see a large black creature throwing a white unicorn out of the window and knocking it out, but it didn’t stop attacking it and sent it sprawling across the grass, tearing the floor up with its back feet as it tore after the limp body of the unicorn.  
“STOP!” the Princess knew that her voice wouldn’t have any effect but this time she was very wrong, as soon as she came into view, the black figure stopped dead and its large blue eyes glanced into hers. “He will be taken into custody…” a necklace was dangling from the creatures neck, a small key shape, it had been so dark that she hadn’t seen that this figure was Drake, the moonlight was hidden behind clouds and it left Drake hidden in the darkness, his breathing was falling and climbing rapidly.  
“Did you do this?” she couldn’t believe that the calm and charming guy that was living with Twilight had just beaten a mad unicorn senseless and was not bleeding onto the ground…  
“Drake…your chest…” Princess Celestia pointed with her hoof, he pulled his shirt back and saw the huge gash in his right side of his ribcage, blood was pouring heavily and soon he lost consciousness just as Princess Celestia called for help and darted towards Drake just as his head hit the floor.


	13. Mayoral Assassination

“Doc is he going to be alright?” a high voice was bubbling out in the darkness.  
“Yes, I’ve had a hard time looking at his body because I have never seen anything like this before…but it’s merely just a case of broken ribs.” The doctor had a deep voice and didn’t sound too confident. “But unfortunately one of his ribs won’t heal, when I arrived to make sure that his bones would repair themselves, he seems to have snapped it fully off, there is nothing I can do now.” He bid farewell and left with a closing of a door.  
“Is his face going to stay like that forever?” a soft voice came from a second direction.  
“PINKIE! You should be thinking less about his bruised eye and more about his one less rib!” Drake heard Rarity exclaim.  
“Sorry, I just didn’t want to look at it.” She sounded like she was upset.  
“Drake needs to rest, you can visit tomorrow though.” Twilight Sparkle said in a sad tone and Pinkie Pie was about to leave first.  
“They don’t have to leave.” Drake groaned as he opened his eyes a fraction and saw that his vision was heavily blurred but because his friends were completely different colours to each other he knew who was who. A pink blob skidded up to his black covers and nuzzled his right hand that had fallen down from the bed.  
“How ya feelin?” came Applejacks voice, she was standing to the left of Rainbow Dash who had stuck herself at the end of the bed.  
“Sore…” his voice had a tired tone to it, it hurt to breathe but no more than he thought it would if he had snapped a rib off.  
“The doctor has dosed you with some painkillers, he said it might wear off by around midday tomorrow.” Twilight came into focus a little bit more now, her eyes were red and puffy.  
“What time is it?” Drake asked in an almost silent voice.  
“More like what day is it. You’ve been out for a whole weekend you lazy bum.” Rainbow Dash joked but her heart wasn't in her laugh at all.  
“Dam it.” Drake murmured but quickly why he was lying here without one of his ribs. “What happened to that unicorn? I remember Celestia came and shouted a bit and then…”  
“Well, she stopped you beating him up…honestly though, I have never seen her more scared, she told me yesterday that she thought you weren’t going to stop hitting him.” Twilight informed him.  
“Why don’t I remember any of this? I’m sure I’d remember taking a unicorn to the brink of death.” He put his hand to his head and felt a large bump where he was knocked into the chalkboard at the school from the unicorns tackle.  
“Princess Celestia said that you hit your head in the filly’s school when you fought that unicorn, she’s been interrogating him all day.” Twilight shivered when she thought about what Celestia would be feeling right now towards that unicorn.  
“Yeah, I remember that.” He may have felt groggy and was dosed up so high that he just wanted to sleep but that bump still hurt.  
“Doc said you should be able to get up and move in a few days.” Rainbow Dash and Drake both groaned at the same time when Fluttershy told him.  
“But we said we’d fly together.” Rainbow dash groaned heavily.  
“Don’t worry, the time will fly by.” Twilight reassured them. “Now Drake really should go back to sleep for a bit, the more you rest the quicker you’ll heal.” She spoke like she was reading it right out of a book.  
“I’m in no state to argue about it.” Drake said quietly and sank further into his red pillow.  
“I promise I’ll be the first here tomorrow Drake.” Rainbow Dash swore and sadly dragged herself out of Twilights home.  
“I have something in mind for you!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed and then shot out the door.  
“Ah’ll get big Macintosh to cover for me at the farm, see ya’ll later.” Applejack waved and made her way back to the farm.  
“Darling when you are fit enough to move around you must come to my boutique and I’ll create you the most handsome hero outfit you can imagine.” Rarity hadn’t stopped thanking Drake for putting his life on the line against a mental unicorn just to make sure they wouldn’t hurt Fluttershy again. She left the library with a book on Daring doo, she wanted to make a daring doo outfit for RD.  
“Erm…thank you Drake, it really means a lot to me…but I didn’t want to see you hurt.” Fluttershy sobbed and left in a hurry, the front door slammed behind her and Twilight was left alone with Drake as his eye lids began to droop and he fell asleep once more.  
Twilight made herself busy and decided to put away the books that Drake had been going through a few days ago that were laying off their shelves and some were made into piles on the floor and some were still open on the tables.  
“How is he?” Spike had stopped sweeping up dust and was now clutching the broom in both of his claws like he was waiting to hear bad news.  
“He’s fine now, he just needs some sleep so don’t disturb him.” She told him sternly, Spike nodded and carried on sweeping but his mind wasn't focused on it and he bumped into a bookshelf, Twilight giggled and called him silly.  
She had spent most of the day by just replacing the books that were closed and she marked the pages of the books that were open with purple bookmarks and placing them neatly to one side of the room. It looked like there was little to do but she could barely move when Zecora came to visit her later that evening.  
“Good evening Zecora.” She smiled at the zebra pony that was standing on her porch; she was wearing a bag saddle bag on her back.  
“Good evening Twilight, I hear that your friend Drake was injured a day or so ago. So I mixed up a brew and thought it would bring his bleeding to a steady slow.” She spoke like a poem and pulled out a small red vial out of her saddle bag, it slopped around thickly as she handed it over to Twilight who took it with her magic.  
“Oh thank you Zecora, you’re very generous, I’m afraid he’s just fallen asleep at the moment…” she stopped as she saw the same key necklace hanging around the zebra’s neck, it looked like the same one that Drake wore, but upon a longer and closer look it was different to Drakes, his looked like it had a chain running down the middle and a spiky edge around the hand guard, whereas Zecora’s was a chunky looking one that looked far more basic and blocky than Drakes.  
“Er…Zecora, may I ask where you got that lovely looking necklace from?” Twilight asked with a slight worry of what the answer would be.  
“I found it while moving around the forest, among the woods it was the purest.” She didn’t say much else after that and said her goodbye to Twilight who once again thanked her for the potion, Zecora trotted off towards the Everfree forest and to her home.  
Twilight closed the front door and set the potion down on the table, she sighed heavily and saw that the sun was now fully set and thought it would be time to call it a day; she had no intention of waking Drake at the time just to drink that potion so she’d leave it to the morning.  
Spike had taken himself to bed already and was snoring under his blanket, she was about to tuck herself into her star themed bed when Drake called out to her.  
“Twilight? Is that you?” he was more drowsy now the painkillers where in full swing whereas he had just been injected with them when the doctor and his friends visited.  
“You should be asleep.” She walked slowly to his bed side and he held out his hand and she allowed herself to be held in a small kind of hug.  
“I don’t want to…” he groaned, Twilight was now resting her head on the bed looking up at him, his light blue eyes looked terrible and sick through the small slits that his eye lids had become. He shuffled along and Twilight hesitated to hope up into the bed with him until he tried lifting her up and flinched slightly. She made her choice and jumped up with him, he held her close to her with her back to him and his arm under his head. “Could you just stay with me?”  
“Ok then, but not all night.” She replied, she felt a cold feeling down her back and looked at Drake to see tears leaking from his eyes, he held her tighter in now both arms. She had read about the side effects of being under sedation, being emotional for little reason was one of them and Drake showed signs of it.  
“Please don’t leave me for the stars.” Twilight guessed his mind was a bit scrambled now and he meant the stars on her bed sheets. “I love you Twilight.” He cried harder now, she rolled her eyes and knew he was being stupid now.  
“Good night Drake.” She sighed and like she had given an order he was asleep, she tried to wriggle free but resorted to her magic to teleport out of Drakes arms and into her bed, he didn’t wake or stir.  
It didn’t take long for Twilight to fall asleep and she was now dreaming of the grand galloping Gala. She was talking to Princess Celestia about her activities and they began to chat about really random subjects, like when the apples would come into season.  
There was a few other things that Twilight spoke to the dream Celestia about, but what after a few hours she began to stir and wake up.  
The smell of fresh cut grass drifted in through the open window, she sat up and saw that Spike wasn't in his bed…nor was Drake.  
She was annoyed now that Drake had ignored her and gotten out of bed, and Spike should have made sure that Drake stayed in bed.  
“Urgh…” she heard a deep groan from downstairs and hopped out of bed and walked down the stairs to tell Drake to go back to bed, but when she got downstairs she saw that he was clutching his side and the bottle of liquid had been drunk.  
“Go back to bed Drake.” She was about to push him when he screamed loudly.  
“I can’t, the painkillers wore off and…ARGH! It’s bloody killing me Twilight!” he shouted through gritted teeth.  
“The doctor said this would happen. I see you found that bottle though.” She pointed to the empty vial on the floor.  
“Eased the pain a bit, what was it anyway?” he asked and tried to stand up but everyway he moved it pained him.  
“Zecora dropped it off; it should have stopped you bleeding.”   
“Yea I’ve stopped now…she couldn’t have brought me anything useful though could she?” he cried out in a hurtful tone.  
“She was being kind!” Twilight scolded him and furrowed her brow at him.  
“I’m sorry Twilight but a bandage would do the same thing.” He leant against the bookshelf and let his hand flop against it. There were no blood stains on his clean white shirt so the potion did what Zecora said it would, but the pain in Drakes side was burning. “Ok, if I can concentrate I think I can shift the pain around my whole body and it might stop.” He shut his teeth together and tried to imagine the pain in one section moving around his body, filling out the different parts and into every single tiny millimetre of his body, a trick of the mind that seemed to be working.  
He was now breathing heavily and steadily, “Any better?” Twilight asked as she took a step closer.  
“Yea, it still bleeding hurts though…oh dear.” He looked like he had forgotten something and just remembered.  
“What?” Twilight thought that something bad happened.  
“I just made a really bad pun.” He gave a small laugh. “Got any ice?”  
“We got ice cream.” Twilight said as she thought of the chocolate swirly ice cream that was in her freezer.  
“Oh hey you’re up.” Spike said in a cheerful tone as he walked out of the kitchen, “Listen i…BURP!” he gave a loud belch and shot out a scroll that Drake caught in mid-air.  
“Read it then.” Twilight said in a bland tone.  
“ ‘Dear Drake.’ Hah, it’s addressed to me!” he cried out and Twilight once again rolled her eyes. “Anyway, ‘Dear Drake, I hope you are feeling better now since your ordeal with the unicorn, I know about your missing rib and hope you are able to walk around now, I have tried to find out about this unicorn and hoped you could shed some light on it for me. Your friend, Princess Celestia.’”  
“Wow, friend of the Princess already, that’s awesome.” Spike cried out and waved his arms in the air. He slipped back into the kitchen and came back with a small white pill in his sharp purple claw. “The doctor dropped by and said it should relieve some of the pain.” Drake stared at him; his teeth became gritted once more.  
“You tell me now that you have pain killers?” he sounded furious but he snatched the pill out of Spikes claw and swallowed it quickly, it slid down his throat and began to dissolve in his stomach.  
The pain in his chest had simmered down to a slight twinge after an hour or so, but Twilight still suggested that Drake not see anypony today and try to take it easy, he agreed with her on the first go. He had become drowsy after a half hour of taking the concentrated painkiller and even just at 11 o’clock he and Twilight had pushed their beds together to create a larger one and had begun a chess tournament, ten rounds to see who the best was. Spike was the judge and had the chess rules and guidelines book by his side as he made sure no illegal moves were made and made sure they didn’t move when they were in check and called it as soon as the chess piece moved if it was checkmate.  
Drake had won the first 3 matches and then lost on the 4th, so now they were onto the 5th and Twilight had Drake cornered, her mane was fraying a bit as Drake had mocked her during his winning part of the math, her two knights, her queen and one of her rooks was taken and she in turn had four of Drakes pawns and both of his bishops. Now she was winning she was getting a bit antsy.  
“Sure you want to go there?” Drake had his head resting on his arm and his legs hanging off the bed, he loved taunting her as a small joke, she could have easily moved there without being taken or in check, but because he said it she faltered and moved it to a different square. “Thanks for your last rook.” He smiled as his pawn took her rook, hey eyes widely danced around the board.  
“No wait…I didn’t want to move there…” she flustered.  
“Too bad, you let go of it.” He smirked and added her rook to his pile of Twilights fallen chess pieces.  
“ARGH!” she moaned loudly and in her frustration she angrily moved her queen to the left three squares to put Drakes king in what she thought was checkmate. “HAH!”  
“Thank you.” He said slowly and used his other rook to take her queen.  
“DAM IT!” she shouted and roughly moved one of her pawns forward and Drake took it with his queen and Spike shouted out “Checkmate.”   
  
The rest of the week had been painful in the mornings when the painkillers wore off and Drake woke up screaming in pain, Twilight had almost burst her ear drums on numerous occasions but she knew that Drake couldn’t help it, since his rib had been ripped out the nerves were hanging slightly looser than normal and the painkillers fought against it greatly but still it hurt to touch it.  
It had been a full week when Twilight allowed Drake to get some fresh air but with her walking beside her in case the pain suddenly exploded. They went to sugar cube corner and bought some cupcakes and muffins, Pinkie Pie jumped right up to Drake but didn’t need to be told to not touch him, and she stopped straight away before she got on him.  
“How you feeling Drakie?” Pinkie smiled and sat there awkwardly, even Twilight knew that she wanted to hug him and make him feel better.  
“Better now thank you Pinkie Pie.” He bent down and gave her a hug that made her smile and made Drake winch slightly but he still didn’t let go, only when the oven pinged did Pinkie jump out of Drakes arms and saw to her cupcakes.  
“Hey Twilight hey Drake, is Pinkie pie in?” a small and western accented voice from behind them, Drake turned around to see Applebloom standing with her cutie mark crusaders Scootaloo and Rarity’s younger sister Sweetie Bell. Applebloom stood in the middle of the three of them and they stood in a straight line so nopony was infront or behind each other.  
“Here girls!” Pinkie Pie popped up from behind the counter of the cupcake shop and announced herself. “I have those cupcakes for you that you asked for.” She said in a soft voice and brought out a large white box with a picture of a cupcake on it.  
“Thank you Pinkie Pie.” Scootaloo said and took the cupcakes off the counter and had it balanced in between her tiny wings, she and Applebloom ran out of the cake shop while Sweetie Bell stood mesmerised by the sight of Drake as he gave a large yawn and almost fell on top of Twilight who didn’t notice. His canine teeth caused her to snap from her trance and she galloped out of the bakery as quickly as she could.  
Three joint screams echoed from the streets and Drake turned almost instantly on the spot and shot out the door to see where the screams where coming from, the cutie mark crusaders where crouching on the floor. It was mid-day but the sun must have been behind clouds because it was very dark all of a sudden, then Drake looked up and saw that the whole sky was now pitch black with thick smoke billowing from somewhere.  
“It’s a dragon!” Scootaloo screamed with her hooves over her head.  
“No it’s a bonfire gone wild!” Sweetie bell yelled.  
Drake didn’t hear what Applebloom had to question what it was as he was no sprinting through the town streets of ponyville to find out what was on fire, he wouldn’t be able to handle a dragon but if it was a fire then he needed to lend any assistance he could to the town’s fire department. Did they even have a fire department?  
“You’re not going to get yourself hurt now are ya partner?” Applejack had been at a stall when she had seen the smoke and then Drake went shooting past her, she knew that just a week ago he had lost a rib and was in no fit state to run and she wanted to make sure that he didn’t get hurt again.  
“I’ve learnt the pain AJ, I’m not going through that again, don’t worry.” He coughed a bit as they neared the source of the fire.  
They shot round a corner of a sofa and quill shop and saw that the town hall was a blaze, the fire was so fierce that all the ponies couldn’t cross the bridge over the lake around it, the unicorns and the Pegasus were either using magic to direct the water in large funnels at the flames or using their wings to create huge waves and splashing the flames, but neither of the attempts were working, the flames were so strong that the water was evaporating before they could hit the base of it.  
“Don’t ya dare even think bout goin in there.” Applejack put her front left leg out to stop him but Drake wasn't moving to start with.  
“I’m not moving.” He promised her, the mayor was panting heavily and covered in soot a large distance from the bridge. Drake moved to ask her if she saw anything.  
“Well, I received a letter saying about a meeting here…I arrived and then I was jumped by some hoodlums and when I came around I was in the town hall and…and…there were flames everywhere…” she broke down into sobs and hid herself with her hooves.  
“What does this mean Drake?” Applejack lowered her western hat to shield her face from the intense heat from the fire that was still being tackled by the fire fighter ponies.  
“It means that whoever destroyed the Canterlot castle has now stepped up their game…they're trying to kill now.”


	14. The Rise of Discord

Rarity was waiting impatiently for her western friend Applejack in her boutique, she was tapping her hoofs in slowly wearing out patience, Sweetie bell was wearing a small white dress with light blue hems around the back; she was joining her big sister to go to the Grand Galloping Gala that was being held where the town hall had been raised to the ground and then disposed of so there was now a very large space free that Princess Celestia had said that would be used for the Grand Galloping Gala.  
“If Applejack isn’t here in ten minutes we may have to leave without her.” Rarity said through gritted teeth towards her sister. Sweetie Bell turned towards her sister.  
“She’ll be here don’t worry, and you won’t be the only pony missing out a friend; she’s supposed to bring Applebloom with her.” She said with a sad tone.  
“I just hope that she is quick, I don’t want to be late for the biggest party in all of Equestria.” Rarity began to imagine what the Grand Galloping Gala held for them, because it wasn't being held in Canterlot it was going to be very different and with someone from a different world helping with it, this was either going to be a wash out or would be falling a tiny bit short of the last time; Rarity didn’t have much faith in Drake. He may be good with music but a royal party would be way out of his league.  
At that point, when Rarity was thinking about all the decorations, a loud knock was at her door, her white cat Opal jumped out of its jewelled basket and was clawing at the door.  
“Coming!” Rarity called out. She opened the door using magic and there stood Applejack and Applebloom, they both wore what looked their work clothes but upgraded with gold cloth for the yellow sections and sapphire glittering parts for the blue and it also went the same way for the red that was replaced with ruby cloth. “You took your time.” Rarity said to Applejack with a frown, Applebloom had shot from her big sisters side and joined her best friend.  
“Sorry Rarity, but ah saw Pinkie Pie on the way here and now ah’m a bit concerned about the party.” Applejack said with a hint of worry.  
“Why, what was she doing?” Rarity was also concerned, if Pinkie Pie was doing something at the biggest party in Equestria, it would either be very fun or traumatising.  
“Well…she was pushing her party cannon down the street towards the Gala.” Applejack did sound a bit nervous.  
“What are they talking about?” Applebloom asked her friend Sweetie bell.  
“No idea.” Sweetie bell replied. “Excited about the Grand Galloping Gala Applebloom?”  
“Ah’m more excited than a cat in a barn of yarn!” Applebloom squeaked.  
“I’ve never been to the Grand Galloping Gala before, but Rarity says that it will be fun.” Sweetie bells voice hit a high note as she spoke.  
“Scootaloo should be joining us there so we can all go around together.” Even though it was their first Grand Galloping Gala, the two filly’s were ecstatic, and so were their older sisters.  
They left the boutique after a few minutes of making sure their dresses looked as grand as they could be. Rarity used her magic to lock the doors behind her and then they went along the dirt road that lead into the main area of town.  
“I do hope Scootaloo can join us.” Applebloom said to Sweetie bell, they hung back a few feet from Applejack and Rarity who were already in mid discussion about what Pinkie Pie might be doing.  
“I’m sure she’ll be there already, you know what she’s like; she is always ahead of us with her scooter.” Sweetie bell replied, they passed Sugar Cube corner and saw that all the lights were off inside, Applebloom guessed that they had been invited to the Grand Galloping Gala, because it was being held in Ponyville rather than Canterlot, everypony could go and Drake had encouraged Princess Celestia to forget the gold tickets this year so anypony and everypony could go if they wanted to.  
Rarity’s boutique wasn't that far from where the Grand Galloping Gala was being held so it didn’t take long at all to get there, it was probably about 4 minutes of walking until they were in the middle of town, with all evidence of there being a town hall gone a large stage had taken its place with many ponies of different types were all gathered in front of it.   
Two very gigantic speakers where situated on both sides of the stage with a large DJ table on centre stage. Stairs led off stage and behind it, there were already many ponies getting impatient, some were chattering loudly and others were stamping their hooves in unison.  
“Oh dear, it certainly wasn't like this last year.” Rarity mentioned.  
“Ah’m sure many of them haven’t even been invited before.” Applejack glanced at her sister to keep an eye on her; she didn’t want little Apple Bloom getting caught in that stampede.  
As they passed crowds of ponies, Applejack was able to hear what the ponies were chatting on about. Many of them were talking about how fun it should be, others were wanting it to start, their legs were getting tired.  
But one deep purple unicorn was talking in a nasty tone about one of Applejacks friend, and she wouldn’t stand for it. She tried to ignore it, but he kept on boasting about his magical talents like they were everything.  
“That Drake is nothing but lazy, I tell you I saw him scoffing cupcakes with that Pinkie Pie.” He flicked his brown mane and swished his dark brown tail from side to side quickly. His friend agreed with his thoughts.  
“I know, he’s been making this town look like it’s going down the sewers.” She had a golden mane and tail with a green coat, she too had her nose stuck high in the air like it was glued to the clouds. “We need to chuck all the pathetic ponies out of this town so we can achieve the best, such as getting rid of that cross eyed stupid Derpy Whooves. I tell you, they are lazy, all of them, and don’t get me started on that Twilight Sparkle…”  
“Don’t you dare speak ill of her.” Applejack growled at them both, they snapped around and saw a furious Applejack with her teeth bared. “Twilight Sparkle would show you foals up any day with three whooves behind her back and blindfolded.” Smoke was almost pouring from her nostrils.  
“Applejack…we should really find a good spot…” Rarity tried to pull her away but Applejack shook her off.  
“Later Rarity...” Applejack advanced on the stuck up ponies. “And that Drake…he’s made this town better rather than worse. He’s built houses with his bare hooves or whatever they are, far more than what you two have ever done.” She grew closer and closer to them and they began to back off. Her body was shaking with rage that was building and building every second. “Don’t you dare even think about them in that way, and ah’m sure that Derpy Whooves is a lot smarter and braver than you two idiots are.” She snarled at them, they reacted by cowering with Applejack standing over them, her eyes felt like that were red with anger. “I hope you choke on the next apple you buy from my family.” She used her front hoof to kick a face full of dirt at them, they coughed and spluttered. When they opened their eyes Applejack was gone and so were her friends.  
The two ponies returned to face the stage, shocked and trembling and still rubbing dirt from their eyes meant they couldn’t see the grey Pegasus in front of them with a golden toned mane and tail grinning from ear to ear. “Thank you Applejack.” She whispered to herself and hopping that Applejack would somehow hear it.  
Rainbow Dash darted from her cloud and soared across the audience when she spotted an orange pony with a white unicorn and stuck her landing with what she’d call awesome…it defiantly was awesome.  
“Woah, AJ, you went full on mental on those two!” Rainbow Dash nudged her slightly.  
“Well they weren’t about to be nasty about my best friends behind their backs.” Applejack was staring at the floor. “I was thinking I should go and apologise.”  
“Are you kidding? You stood up for your friends and to take it back would be an insult to them!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, she knew fully well that Applejack shouldn’t apologise to those foals.  
“You were awesome sis!” Apple bloom hugged her sister and AJ smiled.  
The lights dimmed on the stage and left the audience in darkness, unable to see anything other than just about the pony in front of them.  
“Is it starting?” Scootaloo asked impatiently, she had found Applebloom and Sweetie bell just as Applejack was halfway through her rant, she now saw her best friends sister in a much more awesome light now.  
“I…I think so…” Sweetie bell was standing close to her big sister; Sweetie bell wasn't a great fan of the dark.  
White smoke and bright lights floated across the stage, the lights began to flash faster and faster, the ponies couldn’t see the large alicorn appear in a split second. The lights stopped very quickly and then shone on the alicorn standing centre stage.  
“Good evening every pony, I’d like to welcome you to the Grand Galloping Gala!” the white alicorn spoke in a very loud voice across to the audience in what she called the ‘royal Canterlot voice.’ “It’s an honour to have every pony from across the land here tonight; we have a great host of brilliant dj’s and fun for you tonight, we’re going to give you the greatest dj battle of the century here for you tonight and then we’re going to have some food and games, and then each dj will give you their best music that’s been very carefully picked for you…”   
“JUST LET START ALREADY!” Drakes voice boomed from the speakers, every pony laughed including the Princess.  
“Yes fine then, here I present to you ladies and gentle colts; the greatest musical battle of the century. DRAKE and VINAL SCRATCH!” a loud bang and lots of blue and red smoke hissed from each side of the stage, Vinyl Scratch appeared with a large twin turntable where the blue smoke was pouring from, and Drake appeared with the same kind of twin turntable, but his had a great red hue to it, rather than Vinyl Scratches that had a blue hue to it.  
“WHAT’S UP PONYVILLE!” Drake bellowed into a wireless microphone, his voice was projected by a massive speaker that stood to his right; he was standing on the right hoof side of the stage and vinyl was standing on the left.  
The entire audience began cheering and stamping their hooves.  
“I hope you’re all ready for the greatest night of your lives!” Vinyl punched the air with her left hoof and turned her volume up to the maximum volume, Drake did the same on his turntable, the speakers began to hum from the waiting input.  
“Are you ready!” Drake bellowed.  
“To be blown away!” Vinyl finished his sentence. The audience cheered louder and harder, Drake and Vinyl both flipped a few switches on their respectable turntables and their speakers began blasting heavy trance music.  
“THIS IS THE BEST GRAND GALLOPING GALA EVER!” Rainbow Dash yelled over the music to her PFF. Applejack nodded in agreement.  
The music had died done a bit now and everypony was busy having something to eat while the music was a lot quieter now. Twilight was having a slice of strawberry cake with Princess Celestia as they spoke about how fun the gala was, the princess was eating a slice of chocolate cake that was levitating in front of her with magic; it was her 3rd slice of cake tonight, but there was more than enough to around, Pinkie Pie had been put in charge of party food and she had gone far more than overboard on food, 8 huge cakes of different flavours towered over them all.  
“I certainly think that this year’s grand Galloping Gala has been…Oh look, here comes Drake.” Twilight pointed to behind the Princess, Princess had her back to the stage and couldn’t see him when he walked off from back stage, she turned around to see him lurch over to them, his eyes were bloodshot and his hair was sticking up in places it shouldn’t.  
“Good evening Drake.” the Princess welcomed him as he brushed the loose hair from his fair. Celestia offered Drake a slice of chocolate cake; he bit into it and swallowed a large chocolaty slice.  
“Actually it’s 2:30 in the morning.” He groaned.  
“Doesn’t feel like it.” Twilight replied.  
“Certainly does for me.” Drake smiled weakly and took another bite of the chocolate cake.  
“You’re doing extremely well, don’t worry.” Princess Celestia put one of her white wing around Drake and hugged him gently.  
“Thanks Princess.” Drake thanked her and hugged her back, making sure not to get chocolate on her.  
“How long are you able to take a break for?” Twilight asked.  
“About half an hour, then I’m finishing up with some heavy bass music.” Drake tried to speak without getting the Princesses mane in his mouth. He gave a large stretch and shoved the rest of his cake in his mouth.  
“What was the 5th song called that you played?” Twilight asked again. Drake tried to answer but all that came out were icing and crumbs of chocolate cake. “Swallow first.” He did as he was told and then could speak.  
“Pretty rave girl.” He answered her and almost choked as the cake went down his throat the wrong way.  
“I really liked that one.” The Princess added, still with her wing around Drake, he couldn’t fall asleep though; he had another few songs to play before he could sleep.  
“Thanks.” He shut his eyes for a split second and almost fell. “Anypony got any coffee?” he asked, Twilight used magic to give him a disposable cup of strong coffee, he drank it quickly and didn’t feel any different. “Is this caffeine?”   
“Nope.” Twilight replied like she was proud of it. Drake groaned again and knew that it would have to do for now and finished it off. It didn’t have the same kick as caffeine coffee, but it was warm and tasted the same so it gave him a bit of an odd buzz. He tossed the empty cup in a black bin that was beside the table and yawned, he glanced over at the dance area, and Pinkie Pie was dancing like she had only just started.  
“How long has she been going for? I saw her jumping when I and vinyl started playing music at the beginning.” Drake asked Twilight and the Princess, Celestia turned her head around to look at Pinkie, Twilight just had to lean a little to her right to see her.  
“I don’t think she’s stopped.” Twilight mentioned.   
Princess Celestia finished off her slice of chocolate cake, waited a few seconds and picked up another slice of chocolate cake. She still had her wing cuddling Drake as she ate her cake; he was slowly running his hands through her swirling mane, he looked up at the stage and saw Vinyl Scratch spinning some records on her turntable. She too looked exhausted but still DJing.  
“I’d better go and relieve her of the night so she can rest.” Drake gave one last hug to the Princess and walked behind the stage, he left Twilight to talk with her mentor once again.  
“You two seem to be getting on well.” Twilight mentioned to Princess Celestia, the princess was about to take a large bite of cake when she thought of what Twilight had just said.  
“He’s friendly and he helps the town with their share of problems, I have every reason to be friends with him.” She almost had an angry tone in her voice, but the floating piece of chocolate cake by her face made it slightly funny. Twilight turned away to chat to a pony that had trotted up to her and was asking about a book that they thought might be in the library.  
The princess was able to blush without her prize student seeing her.  
The stage was lit up with blinding lights and smoke trails leading from behind the stage. Drake was standing in the middle with a large turntable giving his and Vinyl’s remix of colours of the rainbow, everypony was back on the dance floor giving it the best dance moves they had, Twilight was standing next to Princess Celestia who was in the middle, she stood out from the rest of everypony seeing as she was the only Alicorn there and easily the biggest; everypony else wasn't as surprised to be in the Princesses presence as they had been, they treated her like they would to any pony else now since she was staying with them in Ponyville as her castle was gone.  
“I want everypony to jump!” Drake called out to the crowd, everypony did as commanded and was jumping in huge numbers, and it was like a giant ocean of colourful waves bouncing up and down with a giant white whale in the middle, Drake didn’t think of Celestia as a whale though.  
“JUMP HIGHER!” he yelled and everypony began to try and jump higher than before, they were really pumped up and even some were exhausted but still kept going. “Think you can handle more?” he called out. They all shouted back yes, even Princess Celestia was jumping up and down with everypony and she wanted much more music, she was the one who was yelling the hardest.  
“ARE YOU SURE?” he yelled back.  
“YES!” they yelled back.  
Drake flicked a large red switch behind the table and the speakers began to pump out music harder and harder, just as he was about to flick the black switch next to it, he saw a white pony standing right at the back of the audience, he would have tossed the thought of it aside but this was different.  
This pony was staring right at him, not with a look of fun and happy with the music, but…it seemed to be giggling to itself, as it laughed its teeth were shown, nasty sharp pointed teeth. It froze Drake right down to his bones, but what was worse was that this pony had a pink mane and a green tail with its cutie mark slashed open to a large X.  
It didn’t stop him flicking the switch in time though, and just as he did so, both the speakers blew up into a cloud of heavy white smoke, everypony including Drake was now coughing violently from it. There was a shadow in front of him that made parts of the smoke a dull grey, a really big shadow right in front of him.  
A very strong breeze came sweeping across them and blew the smoke away, his eyes were still buring from the smoke but he could very easily hear Princess Celestia gasp and a number of other ponies did as well.  
“Good evening everypony!” a shrill voice bolted through Drake like lightning as his eyes came back to their original vision, before him floated a creature that looked like a laboratory monster, it was composed of many different creatures, he could see part of a lion as its right arm.   
He spun around in mid-air and stretched out like he had just woken up from a rough bed, his eyes were even of different sizes, one of them had a small pupil while the other had a large one.  
“DISCORD!” yelled Princess Celestia; she scrapped her hoof along the ground as to intimidate this creature but he just gave a very loud and daunting laugh.  
“Oh hush now my dear sweet Princess or you’ll miss the fun.” He put his finger to her lips and she recoiled, Drake almost jumped from the stage to attack him but thought it wouldn’t help the situation at all. “Now then.” He turned to face Drake with his back to the audience, Drake froze on the spot as the creature teleported from his spot just in the middle of the audience to right in front of Drake with his hands clutching the turntable. “Who and what are you?” he asked, Drake stuttered as he tried to speak, but nothing would come out. “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?” he mocked Drake. “Could anypony here give me a clue to what he is or who?” he returned to face the audience.  
“You don’t deserve to know Discord, now get out of our town!” Princess Celestia rose from her place in the audience and landed on the stage to face him.  
“Oh hoh hoh! I don’t deserve it don’t I? well, who turned me to stone for more than a thousand years!” he asked a rhetorical question to her.  
“Please will somepony tell me who this guy is?” Drake called out to the audience but it was Princess Celestia who answered his question.  
“His names discord! A villain in all our books.” She growled.  
“But don’t you think it’d be more fun if the front cover was the last page?” Discord laughed.  
“That wouldn’t make sense.” Drake replied.  
“What fun is there in making sense?” Discord gave a huge laugh.  
“We stopped you once before Discord, we’ll stop you again!” Twilight yelled from the audience, she cleared the jump up to the stage with ease and was glaring at him next to Princess Celestia.  
“Only this time it’s different.” His voice stopped laughing and became very serious.  
“In what way?” Princess Celestia asked in a hushed voice.  
Discord leant in to whispered into her ear, Drake had to contain himself to not attack him.  
“I have followers.” He whispered, he stood back up and clicked his fingers, as soon as he did, loads and loads of white ponies with pink manes and green tails in different styles suddenly appeared out of nowhere, the unicorns appeared in a flash of magic, the Pegasus ponies dive bombed from the high sky and the earth ponies had been using the stage as a hideaway place to suddenly jump out from underneath it.  
The rounded all the audience up into a large but tight group, loads of different varieties of ponies with gashed and scarred cutie marks surrounded them. The young ponies were crying and the older ones were trying to calm them down, Drake saw Rarity and Applejack, but not with their sisters and Scootaloo was nowhere to be seen. ‘Please don’t do anything reckless girls.’ Drake thought to himself, trying to send a mental message to them.  
“Oh this is just far too joyful!” exclaimed discord, he cracked his knuckles and Princess Celestia winced at the sound of this.  
“Now you’ve shown yourself though Discord, I can signal my sister and you’ll have to face the strongest Alicorns in the whole of Equestria!” Princess Celestia grinned to herself.  
“Oh well, looks like I’m done for now aren’t i?” he floated in the air and flopped onto his back in a dramatic pose. “If only I had foreseen this…oh wait I did!” he cried out and the clouds above them parted to reveal a large black creature slowly descending upon them.  
“LUNA!” Princess Celestia turned to her sister and cried out, but as she descended, the Princesses face became grimmer every foot her sister dropped. For what Luna wore scared her sister to pieces.  
Luna didn’t even look like she did before, she was taller and a much darker coat than she was before, she wore a close resemblance of armour that her sister did but without the crown, her mane and tail shone with what looked like masses of stars, her eyes had turned from being a beautiful deep blue to a vicious dragon eye blue.  
“Silence you foal!” she bellowed, Drake cowered behind the DJ table.  
“Ladies and gentle coats, behold your new queen.” Discord gave a deep bow and Luna responded by smiling viciously. “Nightmare Moon.” Discord looked up to see her smiling.  
“NO!” Princess Celestia cried out, “The elements of harmony destroyed the Nightmare Moon that had been my sister!”  
“Oh so simple sister of mine, once you go as far as I went to be like this, death would only stop me from being Nightmare Moon.” She snarled at her sister. “Do you know how hard it was to resist killing you in your sleep?”  
“I think we can resolve that right now though.” Discord growled, he raised his left hand and a sickly green ball of what looked like aura began to glow in his hand.  
Twilight went to jump in front of her mentor but found her place had already been taken.  
“NO!” Drake yelled louder than he thought he would have, he had cleared the DJ table and slid across the stage to jump in front of the Princess. “YOU’LL HAVE TO SEND ME TO OBLIVION IF YOU WANT TO HARM ONE HAIR ON HER!” he screamed right in Discords face like he was a pathetic insect.  
“I think you need to be shown what will happen to you if you dare do that again.” Discord growled, but Drake refused to budge and let him harm the Princess.  
Discord turned to face the crowd and flew over to them, he yanked out a grey coated pony with black neat hair with a pink treble clef cutie mark. She screamed as he tossed her onto the stage and she landed in a heap, she tried to stand back up but discord placed his foot on her back and pinned her down.  
“LET HER GO!” Vinyl Scratch yelled at the top of her lungs.  
“Hmmmm…..no.” Discord smirked and conjured up another lime green ball of aura and shot it straight at Octavia, she screamed a blood curdling scream and then went limp, Discord raised his foot off her and kicked her over onto her back, her eyes had lost all their sparkle they used to have.  
“NO! OCTAVIA!” Vinyl screamed and galloped to her side, she held her best friend with her hooves and let tears slowly form, Octavia’s head rolled to look at Vinyl but in another way she wasn't even looking at all.  
“What did you?” Princess Celestia cried.  
“Concentrated radiation particles in a spherical design, my own design thank you.” He laughed a mighty roar and it sent shivers down everypony there.  
Drake had to use all his strength to keep back the Princess from charging at Discord, she’d only get hurt from this angle and distance, especially with Nightmare Moon standing right next to Discord.  
“You didn’t have to kill her, she did nothing wrong to you, SHE WAS TERRIFIED!” Drake broke into an angry shout.  
“Oh but I could make this so much worse right now though.” He conjured up another ball of concentrated radiation. “How about your friend Twilight Sparkle.” He grinned at the purple unicorn that was still standing but defiantly terrified.  
Drake turned around to face the Princess; he didn’t turn with his legs but only with his hips.  
“Kill him.” He whispered, the Princess lunged to the side of Drake and fired a ray of bright light at Discord, he yelled at the radiation ball went sky rocketing off into the air, Nightmare Moon returned fire by locking a dark beam of power with Princess Celestia’s sunlight beam, the energy that spewed off from the beams locking together almost fried Drake and Twilight if it wasn't for him pushing Twilight off the stage and they landed in a large heap at the bottom, neither of them was hurt but the Princess wouldn’t be able to take Discord and Nightmare Moon at the same time.  
But before he could do anything to help out with, a Pegasus pony with its cutie mark scratched out soared across the sky and flew straight down for them, Twilight readied her magic to blast it out of the sky but Drake acted first, there was a large stick that was lying at the bottom of the stage, he picked it up then jammed it into the ground and threw Twilight and himself out of the path of the dive bombing Pegasus. But the flying pony couldn’t stop in time to keep mid-air and would have landed in the mud without harm if Drake hadn’t seen its flight angle, a deep nose dive at them, he used to stick to plant it in the ground and skewered the Pegasus pony.  
“URK!” the pony screeched as the stick tore its way through its windpipe and now it was either knocked out or dead, Drake didn’t care much for it right now because he HAD to help the Princess.  
He jumped back on the stage as Discord threw another ball at her, this time it was a red ball of gooey mass.  
“TIME OUT!” Discord yelled at her, but before it hit the Princess who had just been released of her locking beam with Nightmare Moon, Drake had covered her front as a shielding hug to take his life rather than hers.  
BANG!  
A large surge of power made all the unicorns in the audience and including Nightmare Moon dizzy as the Princess and Drake seemed to instantly disappear and left a small burn mark on the stage.  
“WHAT DID YOU DO WITH OUR PRINCESS?” Rainbow dash flew into the air but was tackled back down to the ground and pinned into the mud by one of Discords minions.  
“I need her out of the picture and that kid was a nuisance. So I sent them where they cannot return.” He smirked as the ponies trembled before him and Nightmare Moon.  
“I think you lot need to be taught some discipline.” He growled and though of hideous and terrifying thoughts to hurt and torture them, he was sure that Nightmare Moon was doing the same.


	15. Discipline Island

Drakes legs spazzed out as he tried to get to his feet, they kept slipping and he knew panicking wasn't going to do anything any better but he couldn’t stop. His vision was blurred and his side felt like it was on fire.  
“CELESTIA!” he yelled out, Discord had done something and he knew for a fact that she had the same effect done to her.  
“It’s ok…I’m here.” He heard her call back, his vision began to sharpen and he saw a large white object swaying before him, he rushed over to it but his vision hadn’t sharpened and his with his head still spinning he fell sideways and landed in a large amount of liquid.  
“ARGH!” he screamed and feared the worst, it was Discord who had sent them to wherever they were, and he feared that he had just landed in corrosive acid. But his skin didn’t melt nor even burn off, what had he landed in then?  
“It’s ok Drake I got you.” He heard Princess Celestia reassure him and pulled him up, he was now leaning on her as he rubbed his eyes and his vision became crystal clear again.  
He was looking out to a beautiful blue ocean that sparkled in the mid-day sun, he stood upon gorgeous white sands that dipped down into the blue ocean that lay before them both, he turned around to get a 360 degree view of where he was and saw gorgeous green palm trees that pointed right to the sky. He looked to the sky and saw that there were no clouds in the sky at all; it was like Rainbow Dash had cleared every single cloud in the sky up until the horizon. The sun beat down on them with a warm glow as Drake leant against the Princess.  
“Where are we?” his voice had the same tone in it that his eyes were idolizing over, the sight was mesmerising and his tone showed it.  
“It may look nice and cosy, but this was a time out zone for me and my sister.” The Princess replied, Drake let go of her and she began to walk around the perimeter of the island, her horn glowing a strong yellow aura.  
“What do you mean a time out zone?” Drake echoed.  
“When we were young, me and my sister sometimes got into mischief and our parents set this world up to make us have time out.” She called back to him as she got further away as her horn began to glow stronger and suddenly drop weaker and then back to a strong glow once again.  
“Like the naughty step of Canterlot castle then.” He jogged up to her side.  
“Kind of.” She wasn't focused on what Drake was saying, she was doing some kind of magical thing that Drake thought he should leave her with, so he left her side and sat down on the white sand and watched the ocean as Princess Celestia was doing her thing.  
The seagulls cawed overhead as the dark haired teenage boy sat staring out to sea on the edge of the white sands of the desert island. Beautiful Blue Ocean lay ahead and all around him as he tried to see if there were any other signs of life.  
“Well, I guess there’s no point in keeping up our chances of leaving, I’ve run magical spells across the island, nothing...that was defiantly a one way send-off…we’re doomed.” The tall white alicorn walked out of the small patch of palm trees and sat next to him, her wings gave a small flutter as she flicked the hot sand until she hit the cool part of the island and sat in the small ditch she had made.  
“We had a nice run though right?” the boy squinted as he turned his head to the left to look at the alicorn who was a few inches taller than him when they were both sitting.  
“Oh yes of course, couldn’t have asked for a better shot at it.” She replied and brushed the sand off her hooves with her wings.  
“And this island is quite pretty if you think about it.” He ran three fingers through the sand to his right.  
“Defiantly.” She agreed with him with a nod.  
“I guess you could say we are the king and queen of our own land now.” He smiled and so did the alicorn.  
“You better stick to your royal duties.” She joked and put her large white feathered wing out and hugged him with it. “You know what I’m not going to miss though?”  
“What's that?” he asked in wonder.  
“I don’t have to haul that heavy sun around anymore.” She gave a laugh and the boy joined in after a small chuckle had escaped them, soon they were laughing hysterically.  
“Ah, we truly are idiots aren’t we Celestia?” the boy and the alicorn had stopped laughing after about 30 seconds of non-stop laughing.  
“Yes we are Drake.” She replied and the laughing died down.  
“Anything you’re not going to miss about your world?” Celestia breathed in the fresh salty air.  
“Well, I guess I certainly won’t miss rainy days…”  
“C’mon, I won’t miss pulling the freaking sun across the world and you try to top it with rainy days?” she nudged him slightly.  
“I wasn't exactly an immortal prince though.” He gave a weak smile and lay back on the sand and stared up at the picturesque sky, the clouds were few and the sand greeted him warmly like a welcoming hug.  
“We’ll see about setting up a shelter for the night and a get a fire going.” The alicorn also rolled onto her back and her chest plate dug into her spine as she did so, it only took her a few seconds for her to sit back up straight and remove the chest plate and crown, she used her left hoof to dig a small hole and stash her jewellery into it before feeling the sand on her back without any uncomfortable feelings.  
They spent maybe half an hour just dozing and soaking up the sun’s rays, Celestia had never truly taken the time and sunbathed; even though she was the princess of the sun.  
“I tell you what Drake…if we do get out of here…we are having a sun bathing day…24 hours of sun and no work…” Celestia had relaxed so much that she was now dribbling but didn’t bother to do anything about it, she was far too comfortable now in the sand that had formed around her.  
“I second that.” Drake was also dribbling slightly.  
“Can I ask something?” Celestia wiped the drool from the side of her mouth.  
“Yep.” Drake didn’t wipe the drool but let the sand soak it up.  
“If we are able to escape, are you going to return home?” her leg twitched sharply as she relaxed a bit too much and her leg nerves sprung back.  
“Had too much of me?” he joked.  
“I didn’t mean that!” Celestia took it like he meant it.  
“I know, I’m just pulling your wing.” He nudged her after a failed attempt of poking her and dug his hand into the sand.  
“Well, I was wondering if you wanted to stick around for a bit longer. Since Luna moved with her troops to keep the south secure from Discord, there’s a free room that could do with a new owner.” She bounced back from her sudden hurt tone and Drake sat up, the back of his spiky black hair was dotted with sand.  
“Are you asking me if I want to move into the castle with you?” Celestia sat up as well and brushed the white sand out of her wings.  
“If you want to that is.” She gazed out to sea from the tiny island, the waves must have raised and dropped about a few centimetres as they slowly washed upon the small shore.  
“I’d be honoured to live with you Celestia.” He shuffled next to her, leaving a large line where he slid along the sand. He out his left arm and held her close to him, he used his fingers to slowly brush her gently.  
“Let’s get a fire going then.” Drake stood up quickly and clapped his hands together, brushing off the sand on his brown jeans and on the back of his white shirt.  
“…and so he said, ‘ugh, do you mean that octagon thing?’ and the police turn to him and say, ‘Who taught you octagon?’” Celestia gave a huge laugh as Drake continue to tell his joke, he gave a chuckle at her laugh, it had a slight posh tone to it, but since they had been sent to that prison island by Discord she had given up on her royal attitude and taken to getting her hooves dirty.  
The fire crackled in the centre of them, Drake and Celestia were sitting opposite each other with the fire in the middle with parts of the trees used as fire wood and Celestia had used a spark spell to ignite it.  
“I guess we are going to need a shelter for tonight. I think I found a bunker in the trees that had been buried in the ground…” before she finished Drake stood up and began to search the ground in the trees for any signs of a hatch or door by kicked things around with his foot, the only light was coming from the fire and everything else was pitch black.  
“Here…” came Celestia’s voice from beside the fire, a small sphere of light shot over to Drake and bounced along the ground and rolled to his feet like she had gently tossed a baseball.  
“Thanks.” He grabbed it in one hand and crouched down on his knees to see if anything looked a bit odd and might conceal a trap door or something until…  
“Aha!” he gasped and grasped a small metal ring that was covered by dead leaves, he stood up and was still bent when he lifted it, taking a trap door made of dark wood and covered in leaves and sand, the sand either fell backwards or into the hole.  
“What’s inside?” Celestia had left the warmth of the fire and trotted next to the hole, making sure not to fall in as Drake found a ladder nailed to the side and descended into the hole, carrying the light orb like a glass ball as he did. “Anything?”  
“Very…very dark.” He said in a constant tone.  
“Anything usefull?” she rolled her eyes and was thinking about going in herself when Drake reappeared and lent on the side of the hole.  
“Beds, not great like what you’d be used to, but it’s better than sleeping on the sand, we also have: rotten apples and…” he ducked back down and got back up with a glass bottle full of a dark liquid. “…What I think might be cider…and a lot of it.”  
“What makes you think that it’s cider?” she doubted that it was actually cider and certainly wouldn’t be as nice as what the Apple family made. Drake made another ducking down and reappearing act and pulled up a large wooden crate and lit the side up with the glowing orb, big black writing on the side said ‘Cider’ “Ah that would probably make it cider…”  
“Want some?” he reached into the box and pulled out another dusty bottle of the same dark liquid.  
“Sure…” she used her magic and the bottle uncorked itself and she downed it in one gulp.  
At sunrise, the fire had died and half the cider had been drunk, they were now both asleep in the weirdest spots, Celestia was asleep in one of tree branches, he legs dangled off each side and her wings were drooping forward.  
Drake however was on the ground and sleeping like a starfish on the sand, he sat bolt upright and screamed. It caused Celestia to fall out of her tree and into the bush below her with a crash.  
“What?” she cried out as she tried to escape the bush.  
“Ugh, Twilight? I had a terrible dream that I was trapped on a beach with Princess Celestia.” He rubbed his eyes and rolled over onto his front.  
Celestia popped her head out of the bush kind of like a giraffe, her light purple eyes gave a glazed over look that anypony would know straight away that she was thinking ‘you idiot’.  
“Wasn't a dream was it?” Celestia shook her head slowly.  
“Feels like we’ve been here for weeks.” He groaned as he stood up, brushed the sand from his hair and helped pull the twigs out of Celestia’s mane, coat and wings.  
“We’ve been here for a day.” She stood very still as Drake continued to pull the tiny bits of twigs and leaves out of her swirling mane.  
“Do you miss Equestria?” he was now taking out the last few tiny twigs out her mane, by now he was running his fingers through it, her mane was warm like it was cosy rays of sunlight.   
“Of course…” she said and then shut up quickly.  
“There was a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence.” he held her gently and they walked and trotted over to the sand where they kept sitting, the dead fire was still sitting in its ashes.  
“No there wasn't.” she denied it but Drake wasn't stupid.  
“Don’t play dumb with me please Celestia, I know there’s a reason you don’t want to go back to Equestria.” All the twigs were now gone but he was still running his hands through it and along her back.  
“I’ll play fair then…Discord scares me.” Drake kissed her neck gently as reassurance.  
“He terrifies me too Celestia.”  
“Then why do you still want to go back even though you know he’s going to give it everything he’s got to kill you?” she snapped and stood up quickly, she turned to face him; her eyes were streaming with tears.  
Drake breathed in deeply and calmly said, “Because a hero will not be afraid to stand up for what is right and Discord is defiantly wrong. A hero is not afraid to give his life and I’m going to destroy myself before I give up on my friends back in Equestria.”  
“You’re not going to do any harm to yourself Drake!” she yelled at him, he was taken aback by her shouting.  
“I won’t let him kill anymore Celestia.” He stood up and glanced at her as he looked out to sea. “They may not have the greatest thoughts of me, but they won’t suffer from Discord.”   
“Well stop thinking about them…we can’t leave.” She stomped her hoof into the sand, Drake turned his head to look at her. “That teleport was a one way magical spell, we can’t go back.” She sulked and sat down on the floor, the sun was gorgeous but Drake didn’t give a dam about it. He crossed his arms and tried to think…’there must be a way back to Equestria.’ The thought kept running through his head.  
“Princess, can I ask you a question?” he sat down beside her and she used her wing to hold him.  
“We have all the time in the world.” She replied, Drake chuckled and Princess Celestia followed with a giggle soon after.  
“I kept having these dreams about kingdom hearts.” When he mentioned it the Princess turned to listen intently to him. “About the same broken castle and keyblades. Do you have any idea what recurring dreams mean?” he looked up to her to meet her beautiful sparkling pink eyes and she met his light blue eyes.  
She thought it over and then shook her head. “I’ve never heard of such things, the Canterlot archives might have said something about recurring dreams…but I don’t even know how we can get back, even IF we can get back.” She had a depressed tone in her voice and Drake felt the same way, would he ever see his friends again?  
He didn’t want to imagine Twilight being hurt by Discord, or Applejack being made to buck apples for entire weeks straight. His best fashion girl Rarity being forced to construct the most hideous clothes for Discord, Drake knew that Fluttershy was very timid and would be abused because of that. Pinkie Pie wouldn’t be allowed to throw parties ever again, and Rainbow Dash would be played with as the weather messed around with her flight and weather jobs.  
It brought a small tear to his eyes knowing that they were being hurt and there was nothing he or Celestia could do about it.  
He shut his eyes and prayed that they would be able to get somewhere safe, somewhere where Discord couldn’t ever hurt them. Before he knew it though, he and Celestia were once again laying on their backs soaking up sun rays, but this time they weren’t exactly as relaxed as last time.  
The next morning came and once again each person and pony was lying in the weirdest spots across the island. Celestia was lying in the tree tops as she had taken it as her personal space, and Drake was lying on the sand next to a dead fire and some unused fire wood from a palm tree.  
He slowly opened his eyes to see the clear blue sky above him, but now he longed for the clouded sky of ponyville. He sat there for a few minutes, just rethinking his dreams and thoughts about home, he didn’t consider England to be his home anymore, home is where the heart lies and his heart certainly happy in England.  
He sat up and felt the sand slip through his fingers, he tossed the remains of the sand that lay in his palm to the side.  
“I bloody hate sand now.” He whispered to himself. He turned his head to see Celestia still dozing in the tree tops; she wasn't sleeping above a bush now as she had learnt that the harsh way yesterday.  
He had guessed by now that the world they were in had stuck their bodies into suspended animation as his stomach hadn’t wanted food or water since they had arrived, and he hadn’t heard Celestia complain either.  
“Ok…now I’ve got some time alone…” he sighed gently and let a tear fall from his eyes. “I’m really sorry Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie pie and Fluttershy. I guess I won’t be able to make it back as soon as I thought…” he knew it was the first stage of insanity to start talking to himself but for a second…he just wanted to feel like his friends were right beside him.  
“I’m really…really sorry guys…” he pulled his legs up to his chin and rested it on them, letting the tears build up and fall onto the sand to be absorbed and forgotten. He let out an upset sigh and stared out to sea, he was tired of seeing it now, nothing but boring blue seas and boring blue skies.  
His heart ached as he couldn’t bear to think of them anymore…he had never been in love before, but he guessed this was the feeling of heart-breaking. He brushed the tears away and returned his gaze out to sea…what the hoof was that?  
He stood up and tried to get a better look at what was on the horizon, he couldn’t make out what it was, but it covered the entire horizon and seemed to be getting closer at a rapid pace.  
“Princess…can you come here please?” he called out to the Princess and didn’t take his eyes off it. She stirred but didn’t move. So with the object still gaining speed and getting ever closer to them, he began to slowly back up towards the small green area of the island until he was directly beside the tree that Princess Celestia was sleeping in, he picked up the end of the tree that they had cut down for firewood, now it was just a large and solid log but that’s all he needed.  
He put all his strength into whacking the side of the tree with the log and sure enough, it took just a second for the princess to land in a pile of green leaves on the floor.  
“What was that for?” she asked as she stumbled to her feet, Drake didn’t say anything buy pointed to the line on the horizon, by now it bigger and was closer, it didn’t have a real shape to it, it was just a large black hole that was enveloping the world. “Oh my goodness.” She gasped and took a few steps closer. “What did you do?” she rounded on Drake and confronted him.  
“Nothing, I was just sitting on the sand when I saw it approaching….” He thought he hadn’t done anything but the Princess wasn't convinced.  
“That thing looks like it’s taking the world with it now…what…did…you…DO?” she took a few hoof steps closer to him, but he still didn’t know what he had done. The hole was getting closer and was defiantly taking the world with it, he could see just a small cloud near the hole then it suddenly just fell into it.  
“I was just thinking of the ponies back home…and well…I was saying sorry to them that’s all.” Now he waited for her to say that was the most pathetic thing she had heard in all her life, but it didn’t come. In fact, she said the opposite.  
“Oh look at me, I’m old and thick and STUPID!” she yelled and retuned to look at the hole that was getting closer to them. For a split second Drake thought that she was being sarcastic.  
“Remorse…of course…a time out is for ponies that are to made sure that they feel sorry for their actions…you feel sorry because you won’t see them again.” She turned to look at Drake and had a huge smile on her face. “I think…I think we’re going home…” Drake smiled at this, but didn’t have time as Princess Celestia did the same as Princess Luna did when she showed him the night sky; she lifted Drake onto her back and braced herself with her wings holding Drake still as the hole was getting closer followed by what Drake thought was the sound of glass shattering.  
“Drake I want you to do one thing…thick you can handle it?” she asked without turning to look at him.  
“Sure…what is it?” he asked as the hole was now sucking in the sand of the island, it was so close and Drake was defiantly hearing the sound of glass shattering.  
“Just remember this one thing…” they both prepared to be taken into the darkness.  
“What?” he asked as the darkness was so close now.  
“I lo…” he couldn’t hear her as screams filled the air and they fell into darkness.


	16. Rainbow in Distress

Ponyville was falling into despair, every day Discord found and thought of new ways to hurt and torture everypony across Equestria until they broke down emotionally, and even then he laughed at them.  
His soldiers as he liked to call them were just as sick and twisted as he was, some may have gone over the edge into deep insanity with some ponies that just needed to be, as they liked to put it, taught a lesson. Their favorite targets were the young fillies of ponyville, they just loved to cause them to cry for their mothers until they came running, but now none of them were taken to school by their parents’ consent, it was far too dangerous. Cheerilee was out of a job but she didn’t care that much, her last few lessons had been about the glorious things that Discord had done for ponyville as she was made to brainwash her students, and that was defiantly not what her cutie mark was about one bit. When no pony turned up for her school day, she actually sighed for relief.  
There was just no give in his cruel and sick ways, he had taken one afternoon of being bored to send his soldiers down to Rarity’s boutique and burnt all her clothes, everything she had designed and worked for, all those memories that were lined into the stitching; such as the clothes she had enjoyed to make and wear for her best friends to the Grand Galloping Gala. When Discords minions came to her boutique, she was cross to see them but had to let them in or face punishment; and after the mental torture that had been performed upon Sapphire Shores when Discord didn’t think she was singing the right note, she caved straight away. They threw all of her clothes into a pile and laughed as they used magic to set the clothes into a mighty blaze, Rarity had caught Opal in time to get her away from the heavy and thick black smoke. But all of her possessions were gone in a matter of minutes, she had tried to rescue a family picture from the blaze but all she got was a 1st degree burn to her right hoof. Thankfully Sweetie bell wasn't anywhere near the blaze, on one hoof it was a good thing since she didn’t get hurt, but she hadn’t seen her sister since Discord had appeared and feared the worst.  
The Apple family didn’t have it any easier, their apples had been shrunken to the size of a pin head as a practical joke by Discord’s unicorns, they didn’t return to their original size and that meant that their harvest for that year were gone, everything they had worked for that year by making sure that the apple trees were we fertilised and that no pests were getting to them, all those nights working hard until sunbreak were wasted. They had to gather as much as they could from the apples that were left over and preserve them until any more apples would grow. She was in the same nervous wrecking boat that her best friend Rarity was in, she had lost sight of her sister as well at the Grand Galloping Gala was held.  
Pinkie Pie was also in a bad way; Discord had recently posted a new law that had sent her into a spiralling depression, No Parties Allowed. When she heard of this law, she instantly went into a state of circling the drain and slipped into baking huge amounts of cakes and muffins, Discord once again almost destroyed her entire being when he posted a new law. No Cupcakes or Muffins. Now she was spending her days in bed staring at the ceiling and not talking to any pony.  
Rainbow Dash had been sent flying in fear when her house was decimated by vicious unicorns that electrocuted her cloud home with lighting and burnt up all her Daring Doo books with fire, she had been reading them when she heard a noise outside her home and looked out the window to see a group of three unicorns and two earth ponies with white coats, purple manes and lime green tails laughing hysterically and swaying from side to side, they spotted her and she ducked out of sight but they bombarded her home with fire and lighting, she bolted from it before it crashed into the ground and was able to grab a glance at it before she flew off. It was a soul crunching sight, everything she had worked as a ponyville weather mare was gone by some kind of cruel twisted joke. She had flown off to ask her best friend Fluttershy if she could stay with her for a bit, Fluttershy welcomed her with open arms and it was the only time she had seen the bold and brave Rainbow Dash crying out of fear and sorrow.  
As for the studious Twilight, she had been kept as some kind of pet in Discords castle that he had made ponyville build for him, it was made out of the ruins of Canterlot Castle and stood in the same place that it had before. She was dressed for the part of a pet with a black collar, leash and small enclosed cage in the damp dungeon. Discord found it hilarious to drag her around ponyville on her leash and every time she tugged, he yanked it and yelled “HEEL!” like she was a dog. It was the most embarrassing thing that she had been put through and it made her cry openly in public, nopony blamed her to do so, many of them had lost family and friends in attacks by what they had gotten to call the Discordians, so they cried in public as well.  
Not a day went past when somepony hadn’t heard of another losing a home in a fire or act of evil. Some had been driven into depression and madness that they even began to take their own lives, it was a horrible thing to walk around and see burnt out skeletons of houses and ponies crying with each other.  
Fluttershy had remodelled her home to fit Rainbow Dash’s sleeping supplies; in her room she generously made Rainbow Dash to have her bed while she slept on the couch downstairs. Rainbow dash was of course, very stubborn and kept saying that she would take the couch, but fluttershy had prepared for that and began sniffing and sulked, it was only a matter of seconds until Rainbow Dash agreed to take the bed and Fluttershy was sleeping downstairs.  
It had been three weeks since Discord had taken the reins of Equestria and caused unimaginable chaos, with the disappearance of Princess Celestia and Drake causing everypony to have different thoughts about what happened had caused Fluttershy to become very close to tears, but she was being very brave for her animal friends; they needed somepony to be strong as every day when they came for food and shelter, Fluttershy would always see a bowl of food not being touched as an animal suddenly went missing. It hurt so much but she had to be a strong pony for them, Rainbow Dash respected her much more than she had before, she didn’t expect Fluttershy to be this strong.  
The mid-week of the third week since the Grand Catastrophe as ponies had come to calling it was upon the pair of Pegasus ponies. Rainbow Dash had only just gotten a copy of the first book of Daring Doo from the library; Spike had been taking care of it since Twilight was imprisoned beneath Discords castle. She didn’t enjoy the first book as it was quite dry and boring, but she had only just sped back to Fluttershys home before the Discordians could stop her, at least it was something to read, all Fluttershy had were books on animal care.   
Rainbow Dash was helping Fluttershy with the animals feeding time when once again, the weather changed instantly; it was Discords main thing to do and always associated with him rather than his minions. It went from being sunny and hot to night-time with heavy rain.   
As the rain battered against the windows and the roof, thunder was growing closer with lightning strikes. Fluttershy was cowering behind the sofa as Rainbow Dash convinced her that the thunder wasn't going to hurt her, Fluttershy may have been very brave for the past two weeks but Rainbow Dash could allow this to frighten her, she was under a lot of strain from not crying and screaming, the worry of her animal and pony friends also put a lot of strain on her. As fluttershy came out from behind the sofa, she noticed a full bowl with the words ‘Angel’ on it, there was nothing eating it as all the other animals were eating their own.  
Fluttershy began to panic, Angel was her favourite animal and she had taken care of him for years.   
“Oh…oh dear…where is he?” she began to gallop around her home to see if Angel was sleeping somewhere or hiding because of the thunder and rain, but that was highly unlikely. Rainbow Dash picked up on her anxiety and calmed her down enough to find out that her pet bunny was missing.  
“I’m sure he is around here somewhere…” Rainbow Dash tried to reassure her but couldn’t find Angel anywhere, the thing she feared most though was that it wasn't that far from Fluttershys home until a pony or bunny could reach the Everfree forest without being seen.  
Outside, the weather was getting worse and worse by the second, the wind was howling and the rain bashed against the windows and shutters, Rainbow Dash looked out the window at the weather and Fluttershy saw it as well.  
“Oh dear…I hope angel isn’t out in the rain, he’s going to catch a cold.” Fluttershy opened the front door and stuck her head outside into the heavy rain, after a few seconds of failed attempts of trying to see if Angel was outside, she pulled herself back inside and shut the door. Her mane had been wind swept and now it stuck up high in the air but Fluttershy didn’t even notice it, she acted like it was normal. “Oh….if those nasty ponies got their filthy hooves on him…I’m going to…to….to….” at this point she began bawling and fell on the floor.  
“It’s ok Fluttershy, I’ll go outside and see if I can see him and bring him inside.” Rainbow Dash held her friend gently and Fluttershy looked up at her multi-coloured friend.  
“Oh no Rainbow Dash, I couldn’t ask you to do that…not in that weather with those ponies out there…somewhere.” It was unnerving to Rainbow Dash for her friend to say that they were out there…but nopony could ever be sure where they were, they were either nowhere or everywhere at once. It was one of the most horrible traits about Discords minions.  
“Fluttershy, I’m not giving you a choice. I’m going outside to look for Angel.” She turned to look at the window, the left green shutters of Fluttershys home bashed against the window as the wind made the house creak and gave a chill to what would’ve been a very cosy home.  
“I guess you really are the element of loyalty.” Fluttershy was so proud to have Rainbow Dash as her best friend, but still didn’t think it was a good idea for her to go outside as Rainbow Dash flew out the front door and let it slam shut with the force of the wind.  
She sped off towards the Everfree forest with the rain and wind in her mane that rocked her from side to side violently as she tried to spot a fluffy and wet white bunny.  
It had been about ten minutes of flying when she saw a white flash below her in the forest, she dive bombed and crashed into the floor to gather Angel. But her heart stopped as she saw two Pegasus ponies and a unicorn pony with white coats, purple manes and green tails with their cutie marks sliced off in giant crosses. All of them spotted Rainbow Dash and glared at her with their menacing red eyes.  
“Lookie here Earth Burner, we’ve got ourselves a visitor.” The unicorn said to one of the Pegasus ponies, she gave a nasty and vicious grin that showed all of her white jagged teeth. The Pegasus pony that was called ‘Earth Burner’ laughed hysterically and then snapped his vision back onto Rainbow Dash. The rain around them howled and soaked them to their bones, only Rainbow Dash shivered from the freezing rain, the other ponies acted like it was nothing to even notice.  
“We sure do Night Wanderer, oh and look.” The Pegasus pony scraped his hoof along in the wet mud. “It just so happens to be the beloved element of loyalty.” He took a step forward just as Rainbow Dash shot up into the sky to flee from them but was attacked mid-air by the second Pegasus pony and tackled into the mud, her mane was soaked with heavy mud and she coughed up more mud. The Pegasus pony was pinning her down and the more Rainbow Dash struggled to free herself, the more she was pushed into the mud by the Pegasus pony.  
“Let’s rip her limb from limb.” The unicorn laughed as she used magic to pick up a large stone and her magic swirled around it till it was a make shift knife. Rainbow Dash was now panicking violently as the Pegasus pony that was pinning her down dug his hooves into her legs, Rainbow Dash screamed out for help but knew her cry’s would have just fallen on ears that were going to kill her in the forest. And fluttershy was still expecting her best friend to come back.  
“No…” the Pegasus pinning her down spoke out in a soft tone, the others looked at him in disbelief. For a split second, Rainbow Dash thought that he wanted to spare her. “All my time in Ponyville I’ve had my lustful eyes on her.” He leant down her ears and whispered. “And now she’s all mine.”  
Rainbow Dash screamed out for help again but nopony was coming, lighting made her jump as it shattered around them and must’ve struck down in the forest somewhere. It struck twice as the other ponies turned their backs on the male Pegasus and his prisoner.  
“Call us when you’ve finished with her.” The unicorn laughed as they trotted off away from them.  
The Pegasus pony leant closer to Rainbow Dash as he whispered into her ear and lowered his body closer to hers.  
The rain stopped instantly just as quickly as it had started.  
“Prepare yourself.” He whispered and Rainbow Dash braced herself for pain. “Here I co…URK!” she heard the Pegasus gasp and the weight lifted from her instantly, she struggled to get up because of the soaking mud. Her back hooves slipped violently as she failed to get up. “GET OFF ME!” she heard the Pegasus pony gasp.  
“Shut up.” She heard a voice rasp in the air then a low thud made her jump. She still couldn’t get up as she heard footsteps coming towards her.  
“PLEASE DON’T HURT ME!” she screamed as she recoiled on her back, her front hooves shot up to protect her face. She felt the thing lay something warm on her side, she was lifted up and onto her hooves.  
“I would never hurt you Rainbow Dash.” She opened her eyes to see two beautiful blue eyes looking back at her, her eyes travelled higher and she saw that her saviour had black hair that was matted.  
“Drake…” she gasped as her eyes welled up instantly.  
“I’ve missed you so much Rainbow Dash, but we need to get out of here.” He whispered to her as he glanced behind her to make sure the other two ponies weren’t coming.  
“I know a way out, follow me.” She whispered back and soon she was flying beside Drake as he ran beside her. He was dodging trees and bushes as she weaved in between them.  
After a few minutes, they could see Fluttershys home; Rainbow Dash was the first to burst through the front door as Drake was running up the pathway.  
“Fluttershy!” she called out as she saw her yellow friend on the couch with Angel by her side, she was stroking his ears as Angel was eating a bowl of dry food for rabbits, Angel had always been picky and incredibly fussy with food, but since Discord took over and the strain on Fluttershy went sky rocketing, Angel had been very laid back with food and took whatever was given to him as to make sure that Fluttershy was happy.  
“Oh, Rainbow Dash, I’m so glad you’re home safely.” She flew over to her rainbow friend.  
“I brought a friend home with me if that’s ok.” Rainbow Dash smiled weakly.  
“Well of course it is.” Fluttershy had her eyes closed as she spoke, Drake walked in panting and shut the door behind him, his shoes were worn down completely and hung very loose with mud covering all parts of them, he wore a red shirt caked in mud and torn in every single place possible, it was like he was wearing a holey shirt rather than a whole one. Even his trousers were ripped and one of the legs was torn up the entire side.  
“Any pony that needs help is welcome…” fluttershy opened her eyes. “At my….Oh….my….Drake?” her eyes couldn’t believe themselves, she had the same reaction as Rainbow Dash did; her eyes welled up and it took a few seconds of her to take it all in and Drake even had to nod.  
“Yea Fluttershy. It’s me.” He breathed out and she flew at such a speed at him that even Spitfire would have been impressed. She tackled him to the floor and cried heavily on him.  
“I THOUGHT YOU DIED!” she screamed and almost crushed him in a hug. But he didn’t care, he was crying himself as he held her in a similarly tight hug.  
“No…I’m…I’m truly alive.” He held her and cried as well.  
Rainbow Dash trotted over to them and looked a little sheepish.  
“Er….Drake?” she asked him, he sat up and Fluttershy went back to tending to Angel and her other animal friends.  
“Yes R.D?”  
“Can…can i….” she stammered.  
“You wanted a hug as well?” he stretched out his arms and she flew into them and held him.  
“I’ve waited so long…” she cried as tears fell down her face and into the remains of Drakes tattered clothing.  
“Where’s Celestia?” he asked aloud as he let Rainbow Dash stand beside him and waited for an answer.  
“I thought she might have been with you.” Fluttershy replied.  
“I lost her in the place I was sent to, something sent me back here and I lost her as we travelled in the darkness.” Drake answered. He hoped that Celestia was in this world and was safe.  
“Where did you go anyway?” Rainbow Dash asked.  
“Celestia said that it was some sort of timeout world built for her and her sisters when they were just foals. I’m sure Twilight would be able to say more about it though.” He gave a smile but Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy just exchanged glances at each other.  
“I think you need to sit down Drake, we need to tell you what’s been happening the past three weeks.” Fluttershy scooted up on the coach to make room for Drake.  
“Three weeks? I was away for three days!” Drake exclaimed.  
“We’ll come to everything else, but first please sit down. You NEED to know what Discords been up to.” Rainbow Dash pushed Drake closer to the couch, he sat down and they began to tell him what the recent three weeks had contained.


	17. Fighting your Nightmare

The recently named NightChaos Castle was home to the queen Nightmare Moon and the judgmental Discord, both had half the castle to themselves, but constantly kept over lapping on each other to speak and deal with matters of Equestria. Nightmare Moon had taken the throne room for the day and night cycle as Discord had taken the day and night to circle around Canterlot to have a look at all the chaos he had been causing. He was taking it as an achievement that he had been able to cause this much chaos and suffering.  
Two guards with the classic tell-tale signs of Discords ponies stood still outside the massive black door to the entrance of the castle. They stood strong with their horns pointed to the sky, both had black armour on that was so matted and dull that even when the sun shot out from beneath the horizon, it didn’t even have the tiniest sparkle to it.   
They hadn’t been interrupted all day until two ponies were running at full pelt to them. The guards light up their horns to attack but their magic died quickly as they recognised the ponies. Both were the same colour as what Discord’s soldiers had set themselves as.  
They were panting as they reached the guards.  
“We request a …a private audience with Discord!” the Pegasus pony panted.  
“On what grounds?” the first guard asked with a glare.  
“The death of Chaos Tornado!” the unicorn yelled. Both the guard’s eyes widened in shock.  
“Chaos Tornado is dead?” the second guard was almost speechless.  
The first guard used his magic to open the large black doors to the castle with his magic, his horn gave off a black glow and it grabbed the doors to make them gently swing open.  
The unicorn was galloping down the long corridor as the Pegasus flew beside her. The corridor was decorated with paintings of Discord that ran down the left side of the hallway while paintings of Nightmare Moon ran down the right side of the hallway. Doors led off into different wings of the castle while at the end of the hallway stood a large white door that the Pegasus and the unicorn took almost no notice of it as they burst through it and into the main hall of the castle.  
The auditorium stood with high black ceilings with white stars that seemed billions of miles away, almost like they were looking up to the night sky; it seemed to stretch on forever like it was real. Right in the middle of the room, sat two very large thrones that were elevated by massive statues of ponies of different kinds, unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies held the thrones high in the sky with terrified and painful looks on their faces.   
A creature made up of many different types of animals was sitting on the throne on the right and was lounging over the arm rests. He was flirting with a dark alicorn that sat very bold and strong in her seat, she had her head turned to watch Discord as he ran his claw through her swirling dark starry night sky mane that flowed from her head and down the side of her throne.  
“Oh you must really have stolen those stars, because they’ve appeared in your eyes.” Discord smiled and Nightmare Moon gave a tiny glimmer of a smile.  
“Please Discord, you flatter me so much.”   
“Oh but it’s true.” Discord gave a small laugh and Nightmare Moon smiled again. His gaze wandered over to the two ponies that had run into the room. “Oh…er…” Discord murmured, he snapped his fingers and in a flash he had appeared in front of the two of them. “Earth burner! Night Wanderer! It’s a pleasure seeing you again!” he looked behind them. “Where’s Chaos Tornado?”   
“He’s dead!” Earth burner shouted. Discord turned around and stared at the night sky, he was staring at a constellation of two stars, his gaze wouldn’t stray from the two stars.  
“What kind of sick joke is this? I’m a fan of sick jokes; just ask anypony, but this is just wrong.” He pointed to the two star constellation. “Where is he?”  
Earth Burner and Night Wanderer looked at each other, each hoping the other could get them out of this horrible situation.  
“We told you Discord…” Earth Burner began.  
“…He’s dead!” Night Wanderer finished.  
Nightmare Moon was watching intently and listening to grab as much information as she could hear.  
“Chaos Tornado is dead?” She asked Discord and leant forwards.  
He sighed and nodded.  
“The stars don’t lie.” He stopped looking at them and returned his sorrowful gaze to the two ponies before him. “How did he die, let me know at least that.”  
“That’s what we wanted to tell you in a rush!” Night Wanderer yelled quickly, Earth Burner snapped his attention to his partner.  
“Spill it then.” Discord commanded.  
“We couldn’t be sure…but…” she began and Earth Burner hung his head down, he knew Discord would flip when he heard. “We think…and when I say ‘think’… I really mean think…” she went over the top to make sure that she wasn't the pony that could be wrong here and anger Discord for no reason.   
“She thinks! Not me!” Earth Burner pointed his right hoof at Night Wanderer and tried to shift the blame off himself and onto her.  
“Anyway…I…think…I saw…Drake…” as soon as she said his name, both Discord and Nightmare Moon caught their breath instantly in their throats.  
“Impossible.” Discord let slip from his mouth. “I made sure he couldn’t come back.” He turned away to talk to Nightmare Moon. “It’s nothing your sister could have done is it?”  
“We both have the same Alicorn magical abilities, but her being my big sister…I don’t think so.” she replied.  
“You don’t sound so sure.” Discord growled.  
“I don’t know for certain if she didn’t leave wherever you sent them, but I’ll stalk the skies and land for her and Drake.” she teleported from her throne to Discord to talk. “I’ll make sure they aren’t breathing when they are sighted next.” And with that, she disappeared in a cloud of dark smoke that shot out the door.  
“Was Celestia with him?” Discord asked without turning around.  
“We…I don’t…” Night Wanderer stammered.  
“WAS SHE WITH HIM?” Discord exploded with rage as he faced them, his eyes burning with anger and fury.  
“No!” they both coward away from him and tried to be as small as possible.  
“GET OUT!” Discord used his chaotic powers to throw them out of the room like he had just blasted them out with a cannon.  
The two ponies landed in a heap in the hallway with Night wanderer on top of Earth Burner.  
“He can be a real jerk sometimes.” Night Wanderer brushed her coat down so it looked smart and stood up so she was off Earth Burner.  
“But he is making Equestria into a better kingdom.” Earth Burner stretched his wings and let all the feathers fall into a neat order. He was about to walk off when he saw that his partner Night Wanderer, was standing with her head pointed down.  
“He says he is but…” she stepped so close to him that Earth Burner had to lean back a bit. “Please don’t tell anyone this, but I will admit u wasn't pushed around like this when SHE ruled Equestria.”  
“You…you liked it better with HER?” Earth Burner sounded startled. Night Wanderer nodded and Earth Burner leant as close as he could to her. “I had a lovely farm next to the Apple family’s one, now it’s completely gone.” He whispered back.  
“Let’s go talk outside.” Night Wanderer whispered as they trotted out the doors.  
Discord was moving the stars around to look for the large sun that was the life sign of Princess Celestia, he flung the moon across the night sky that was the life sign of Luna, or as she was known now for Nightmare Moon.  
He couldn’t see the sun, but still threw every star out of the way to look for it, in case it was hiding behind one.  
“She can’t be back!” he growled to himself. He clawed at the sky and finally gave up. He slumped back to his throne and collapsed into it.  
Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were sitting on the couch watching Drake pace the room.  
“This…is just disgusting.” They had just finished telling him what Discord had been up to in the past 3 weeks, they were in the middle of telling about Twilight Sparkle’s misfortune when he had jumped up from the couch and was now pacing the room.  
“There is nothing we can do though.” Rainbow Dash watched him walk from one side of the room to the other, his hands covering his face.  
“There is always something.” He sat down on the floor and crossed his legs. Fluttershy flew off to carry Angel to his bed since he had fallen asleep against her. “We just need…some help.”  
“Nopony will dare stand up to Discord and his troops though.” Rainbow Dash sighed and floated off the couch and sat down next to Drake.  
“I need some air.” Drake said quickly as he stood up and walked over to the front door. Rainbow Dash shot like a bullet to shut it again.  
“You can’t go back out there Drake!” her wings spread out so they barricaded the door. “They’ll kill you!”  
“Rainbow Dash…remember I taught you some dancing moves and in return, you help me fly?” he asked her and she nodded. “But we never got to flying because of Discord.” She nodded slower this time.  
“Then do this for me to make up for it.” He crouched down to her level. “Let me walk outside and don’t follow me, don’t send anypony after me and defiantly don’t try to stop me.” Rainbow Dash didn’t budge for a few seconds, but she gave in and stood aside, her wings snapped back to the contours of her cyan body.  
“Don’t get hurt.” Rainbow Dash tried to sound strong, but it came out weak instead, Drake shut the door behind him as he left.  
Once he was outside, he could feel the night air but with the hot wind of a summers day at mid-day. It was really humid and sticky as he ran his fingers through his hair, he needed a shower but that would have to wait. His friends were in trouble and he couldn’t do anything about it.  
He shut his eyes and sat down on the hot grass, it shouldn’t feel like this he thought to himself. Discord was messing with the weather and made everything feel like the day, but with the look of the night, he had mauled the beauty of the night and now it didn’t feel right.  
He was breathing deeply and slowly when he spotted a black shiny creature floating above the Everfree forest, it looked like it was looking for a spot to land, and dropped out of the sky like a rock. Drake knew straight away that it was the black alicorn of the night bent on jealousy and anger. Nightmare Moon!  
He scowled at the thought of the alicorn he had thought of as a friend not that far from him, she had been an accessory to Discord and the misery of Equestria. He clenched his fists but knew he couldn’t go charging into the forest.  
Wait a minute. He could go after her! He told Rainbow Dash not to follow him or to send anypony else after him, and Nightmare Moon would be looking for him anyway.  
He stood up and ran straight for where he had spotted the alicorn.  
It was about 15 minutes of wandering aimlessly around the dark forest with the sun shooting out once and then diving back down behind the horizon, the sudden light had dazzled Drake for a minute so he had to sit down so his eyes could adjust. He felt sorry for the ponies that had to live with that all the time.  
He was sitting behind a cherry bush when he heard the distinct scratching of hooves against mud, he sat up straight to look over the top.  
Nightmare Moon was standing just inches from him, she had her back to him but he could see the shiny mane that she was symbolised with. Her cutie mark of a quarter moon was like a red flag to a bull effect on Drake, he still saw the cutie mark belonging to Luna, and not Nightmare Moon!  
He watched her as she was walking away from the bush and across a small stream, he dived out of the bush and into a thick thorn bush to keep his stealth, she hadn’t noticed him so he quickly moved out of the thorny bush and dived behind a thick tree trunk.  
“Now I have you.” He grinned to himself, if he could take her down, it would mean that if Celestia could be coerced into fighting Discord, the Discordia world would fall and Equestria would be returned to normal.  
But he could hear something that sounded strange. A sort of moaning, or sobbing.  
He peeked around the corner and saw Nightmare Moon sitting on the wet mud, her flank was soaked in filthy mud and her cutie mark covered in dirt and soil. She was staring into a large dark lake that sat before her. The water below her was rippling.  
Drake looked around at the base of the tree and saw a large sharp rock about five feet away from him, he crouched down and began to crawl towards it. If he could grab it, he could use it as a weapon against Nightmare Moon.  
Suddenly and without warning, a black sparkling wall fell between him and the rock; he sat up expecting to see Nightmare Moon standing over him, ready to kill. The whole clearing had been sealed in a shiny black bubble. He couldn’t grab the rock now; he’d just have to improvise when he got close enough.  
He stood up and a twig snapped under his right shoe, he curled into a ball quickly as Nightmare Moon heard this as well.  
“WHO GOES THERE?” she yelled in her Canterlot voice, he had only heard this before when Celestia had used it as a joke on Drake to spook him when she crept up behind him. He didn’t stand up until she shouted again. “COME OUT OR I SHALL BURN THIS FOREST DOWN WITH THOU INSIDE IT!” he didn’t have a choice now, slowly and ready to face an angry Nightmare Moon, he stood up and let himself be seen by her.  
“Good evening Nightmare Moon.” He greeted her in a fake tone and through gritted teeth. Her dragon eyes burned into his.  
“D…Drake. You really are here” she stammered as she took him in.  
“Surprised? Because I was surprised as well when I heard my friends are being hurt.” His anger was growing rapidly by the second.  
“I didn’t have any part to play in that!” she snapped at him but he didn’t believe her.  
“Oh sure, and I guess that you hate the fact that your sister is missing!” he snapped back at her.  
“You don’t understand…” she cried.  
“Oh I understand everything. I really hope that are going to face the right punishment for betraying your kingdom.” He growled and walked towards her. “What did you want from this anyway.”  
Her reaction couldn’t have shocked him more.  
“I…I want….I WANT MY MUM!” she screamed and let tears run down her face, Drake stopped in his tracks and watched her. “I WANT MY DAD!” she was fully crying now, she fell back down in the mud again and didn’t care if the mud did get all over her royal horseshoes. “AND I WANT MY BIG SISTER BACK!” she screamed at the top of her voice. Drake took another step towards her, less threatening but he didn’t drop his guard.  
“I…I don’t wa…I don’t want this world to be like this! I want it to go back to the way it was!” she yelled and Drake was now a few centimetres from her, if he wanted to, he could just touch her.  
“I hope you know why I have many reasons to distrust you.” He whispered and she nodded in agreement.  
“I kn…know th…that…” the tears wouldn’t stop flowing now they had been released.  
“Then why did you join his side?” he sniffed gently.  
“I…I was scared…” She cried but he still didn’t believe her though.  
Drake sighed and let his guard down the teeny tiniest bit.  
“Ok then, say you truly are…good…” he bent down to be face to face with her, but she kept her face lowered to let the tears roll off. “Can you help us destroy him?” he whispered and Nightmare Moon looked up quickly, her blue dragon eyes were now red and puffy from crying.  
“De…destroy him?” she echoed.  
“He’s powerful, but with you and Celestia against him, he wouldn’t stand a chance.” He gave a small smile and hoped she would as well, but she didn’t.  
“He’s grown stronger since before though Drake. He’s far too strong.” She dropped her head again and let the tears roll off.  
“Stop crying.” He commanded and Nightmare Moon looked up from being shocked.  
“I don’t need strength. But there is something you could help with.” He looked around as the black bubble was fading.   
“If you truly are on our side, meet me at the library tomorrow at midnight.”


	18. Plots to Kill a Would be King

Rarity and Applejack were making their way towards the library in town, they had both received invitations to a meeting, but it didn’t say who it was from, so it was easy to know why they were wary about it.  
Rarity had been living with Applejack since her home was burnt to the ground; she had also been making her dresses at the Apple farm and selling them all for extra money since all the apples had been ruined on the farm. Applejack was very thin now and her ribs poked through her skin and her face seemed shallow.  
Applejack didn’t have the strength to trot for a while now, so she had to walk very slowly, her strength had dropped very low but at least she wasn't hard to get out of bed like Pinkie Pie.  
“I do hope this won’t take long.” Rarity said in her still elegant voice, it may have been midnight and she was a bit cranky form no sleep, but she still respected her manners when in public…and in private for that matter.  
“I don’t care how long it takes…there’s nothing really left at the farm now.” Applejack replied in her depressed tone, it was true though, unfortunately the Apple family was in mourning, her gran; Granny Smith had passed away a few days ago from undernourishment. Big Macintosh had tried his best to get food, but it was too late, by the time he had gotten home from working hard in town as the Discord black smith, Granny Smith had passed away. The last thing she had said to him was ‘Don’t be too long.’  
They were in silence until they reached the doors of the library, they halted as they saw two Discord guards standing firm with locked eyes.  
“Go in.” the Pegasus of the two of them nodded to the door.  
The two ponies didn’t back chat Discord Guards now days so they pushed the door open and entered into the darkness. The door creaked open and the windows had been barred shut with heavy sheets of wood.   
“Hello?” Applejack called out to the darkness.  
The door slammed shut behind them and they both jumped high into the air at the same time.  
“Evening girls.” They heard a familiar voice in the darkness.  
“Rainbow Dash?” Rarity called out, not knowing where she was.  
“Yea it’s me.” She replied.  
“Where’s the light?” Applejack asked.  
“We’re not allowed to have it on yet, we have to wait till everypony else is here.” Rainbow Dash as the floor creaked.  
“Please Pinkie Pie…everypony is waiting for you.” Fluttershy had been given the challenging task of getting Pinkie Pie out of her bed and down to the library, but the ex-party pony had other things in mind. Most of them were refusing to go and lying in bed.  
“Just leave me alone Fluttershy.” Pinkie Pie moaned as she pulled the covers up over her head and Fluttershy grabbed them with her teeth and flew upwards till she was touching the ceiling.  
“No Pinkie! Everypony else is at the library, you can make the effort as well!” Fluttershy was yanked back down when Pinkie Pie snatched the covers back, but Fluttershy was prepared and countered it by flying sideways. Pinkie Pie was dragged out of bed and landed with a thud onto the wooden floor. “Oh good, you’re up now.” Fluttershy half smiled and Pinkie Pie glared at her.  
“If I go can I go straight back home and will you let me be on my own?” she asked as she slowly stood up.  
“…Yes, fine then.” Fluttershy really hoped now that Drake had this meeting prepared enough to make her stay.  
“Let’s be on our way then.” Pinkie Pie said as she flicked her straight hair out of her face and followed Fluttershy downstairs.  
It had been a few minutes of slow walking for Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie to arrive at the doors of the library, its windows were boarded up and the sign outside trashed and smashed into pieces. Two Discordia guards stood outside the door, Pinkie Pie stopped in her tracks but fluttershy continued till she reached the guards.  
“I’ve brought Pinkie, she was a little stubborn but I got here now.” Pinkie Pie was shocked. Was Fluttershy an enemy and working for Discord? Had this all been a trap?  
“That’s good to hear, everypony else is waiting inside for you two.” The unicorn guard said to Fluttershy, the Pegasus guard opened the door and light flooded inside. Fluttershy made her way inside.  
“Are you coming Pinkie Pie?” Fluttershy asked it was more of a rhetorical Question; Pinkie Pie followed her friend slowly inside the library.  
The door slammed shut and it was pitch black inside. Pinkie Pie couldn’t even see her hoof in front of her face.  
“Is everypony here now?” Rainbow Dash was heard in the darkness.  
“Yes Rainbow, everypony is here now.” As soon as Fluttershy finished speaking, the room was lit up by a bright green large flame that spun in a hoop above their heads.  
Pinkie Pie saw that everypony else was there, Rainbow Dash was standing next to a pile of burnt books, Rarity and Applejack were standing very close to each other. Fluttershy was floating on the second level, she was muttering to somepony that Pinkie Pie couldn’t see.  
“They’re all here now. Can you come down?” Fluttershy hovered for about a second and then swooped back down to the first floor.  
“Fluttershy…who are you talking to?” Pinkie Pie was getting concerned and frightened now.  
Rainbow Dash spoke first.  
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you girls sooner, being my best friends and all…but this had to be kept a secret.” Rainbow Dash looked towards a dark corner of the library and everyponies eyes snapped to where she was looking.  
If they hadn’t been staring straight at that spot, they would never have seen something shift or even that there were something hiding. A foot stepped out into the dark green light of the swirling green flame above them, then a leg was lit up and finally the whole figure was exposed.  
“Drake?” Applejack and Rarity gasped at the same time, before them stood a rough looking Drake, his black hair mangled and matted.  
“Yea…it’s me.” He replied.  
“Where…where’s the Princess?” Pinkie Pie asked, her mouth hung like she was catching Parasprites.  
“I don’t know.” Everypony was dumbstruck when he spoke. “She was with me when I was transported to another world…and then somehow we came here.” Everypony was still looking at him with jaws hanging low.  
“You…were in another world?” Pinkie Pie asked, he hadn’t said anything about that. All they had seen was Discord killing Octavia and then doing the same to Princess Celestia and Drake.  
“Yes, BUT we have somepony kind of like her.” Drake swung around and darted to the front door and turned his back so his hands were on the handle but he was facing the ponies.  
“Who?” Applejack asked, Rainbow Dash gulped deeply and Fluttershy landed on the floor.  
“Just keep your guard up.” Drake said through gritted teeth. He pulled the door open and in the doorway stood a large black Alicorn with a black starry mane and tail. Nightmare Moon.  
“Good evening.” She greeted them as she walked into the library, none of the ponies reacted in anyway except for Applejack to cower a bit by her tail flopping down between her legs.  
“Why is she here?” Rarity was almost speechless.  
“I don’t trust her as much as I can throw her either. But right now just being together spikes fear into Discords heart and we all know it.” Drake replied and shut the door quietly.  
“I’m here to help.” She replied and breathed slowly.  
“Then what’s the plan?” Drake asked and once again everypony including Nightmare Moon glanced towards him.  
“Plan?” Nightmare Moon echoed.  
“Yea, the plan to kill Discord.” He replied and this time, Nightmare moon was speechless.  
“Ok…er…mid-day tomorrow, the guards are changing shifts, most leave ten minutes early and most arrive ten minutes late. That gives us twenty minutes of getting in and out with as little guards as possible.” She was using her mind to picture the hallways of the castle and figure out what the best way to get in would be.  
“Then we take him down?” Drake asked quickly.  
“Just getting in without dying is going to be hard enough.” Nightmare Moon replied.  
“We need to get Twilight Sparkle out!” Applejack yelled.  
“I agree with her.” Drake added.  
“We can’t just go barging into the castle!” Nightmare Moon yelled at Drake but he just let it wash over him.  
“We NEED to get in there though.” He replied through gritted teeth.  
“What do you suggest then?” she asked smugly.  
Drake walked over to a bookshelf that was almost completely bare, he picked up a book and a quill,, he flicked through to the back where the back page was normally blank.  
“Give it the night and I’ll sketch up a plan.” He replied to the whole group of ponies and to Nightmare Moon.  
It was almost sunrise when Nightmare moon flew up to the highest level of the library to check on Drake, everypony else was asleep, Applejack and Rarity had put their differences aside a long time ago and found a way to lay on top of each other underneath the green fire ring that was slowly dying. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie pie were sleeping on parts of a couch that hadn’t been ripped to shreds yet, and Fluttershy had taken to the hard floor.  
Drake was sitting inside the libraries roof but with the star gazing window open, Philomeena had been sitting next to Drake and been flying out and in the window all night carrying paper that Drake had been writing on. She had spotted Nightmare Moon standing over them and shifted uneasily sideways away from her.  
“It’s ok Philomeena, I think.” Drake stroked Celestia’s pet, just like everypony else, Philomeena hadn’t taken to Drake very quickly but was now a good friend of his.  
“Last letters?” Nightmare Moon asked as her blue dragon eyes glanced over the papers that he was writing.  
“Kinda.” He replied with looking at her.  
“You know this is a suicide mission right?” she asked. At this, Drake threw down his quill, ink and papers and stood up quickly,, he was about the same size as her, maybe a bit smaller but not by much.  
“We have no other choice.” He growled at her.  
“You have no right choosing their fate though, you don’t even belong in this world!” she growled back.  
“Oh c’mon Luna! Look around you.” He realised what he called Nightmare Moon and she did too, but he couldn’t stop now.  
“This world is falling apart and it needs help. Pinkie Pie doesn’t like partying! Rainbow Dash is terrified to fly outside! Rarity is homeless! Applejack is starving! And Fluttershy has turned into a commander! I don’t want to think about what Twilight has become…” he walked away from her and Philomeena flew up and landed on his shoulder.  
“You…you called me Luna…” Nightmare Moon stammered.  
“An accident.” Drake snapped.  
Nightmare Moon shifted into a long smoke trail and dodged Drake’s feet to solidify into her full shape in front of him.  
“Drake…look at me.” She whispered to him and he did just that, he looked her up and down. “It’s still me, the same Alicorn that showed you the night sky. What do I have to do to prove that?”   
Drake was staring at her eyes now.  
“I don’t see it.” He replied. He turned to walk down the stairs but stopped to talk to her a final time.  
“When I saw you at that party Pinkie Pie threw for me, you looked brilliant and you treated me with so much kindness. I thought you were like me, an outsider that everypony else was wary of. But now…” he turned fully around and so did she.  
“You’re not the same Alicorn I fell in love with that night.” He turned away and Nightmare Moon let a small tear slip from her eyes, there was the plan Drake had drawn up laying away from the pile of letters he had wrote. She read it and memorised where everypony would be.  
Discord was lounging around the castle in his bedroom, looking out to wonder at his magnificent world.  
There were three sharp knocks on his door and it opened to reveal a very happy looking Pegasus pony with a cut cutie mark, a purple mane and an acid green tail.  
“My lord Discord…” he bowed before entering.  
“What is it Time Shatter?” he asked glumly, his world didn’t feel right.  
“We found her.” He grinned and Discord turned slowly to stare at the Pegasus pony.  
“Found who?” he sighed.  
“Celestia.”


	19. How to Rescue a Princess

“Oh Celestia, you must stop whining.” Discord stepped over his new prisoner. The white alicorn was tied up in chains and a magic dampening spell around her causing her to look like she had just been dunked into the ocean. Discord had moved her into the royal throne room so she was sprawled out on the floor beside Discords throne, while Twilight was pinned to the wall by her dog leash.  
“You…won’t get away with this.” She groaned as she tried to stand up, but Discord pushed her back down with his foot, she smacked back down into the floor.  
“I almost have, I just need to find your precious little lover, and then I will stand above everypony!” he laughed and hopped back up onto his throne.  
“I…I don’t love him…” she was able to whisper out before Discord laughed again.  
“Oh come on!” he leant forwards to yell at her. “I’ve seen this all before, you say you don’t love him so I won’t go after him, well it’s not going to work!” Celestia glanced towards her student, Twilight had bruises all around her neck where the collar was being yanked, and she also had big black and red marks across her face.  
“I’ll find him.” He said quietly to himself. There was suddenly a loud racket outside, the large doors swung open to reveal Nightmare Moon standing tall and strong.  
“Good evening Discord.” She smiled humbly to him and slowly walked inside; suddenly she took notice of her big sister sprawled out across the floor, her eyes widened as Celestia didn’t move.  
“Ah Nightmare, I was wondering if you had gone against me.” Discord smirked and leapt off his throne.  
“I wouldn’t dare sweetie.” Nightmare Moon whispered to Discord, “In fact, I did better.” Her horn glowed and suddenly a large group of ponies and a taller figure came barging into the throne room, discord leapt backwards in retaliation but was quickly softened by the sight of that the intruders were defenceless and tied up.  
“You caught Drake?” Discord was almost speechless as he walked over to examine the brand new prisoners.  
“And don’t forget Twilight’s pathetic friends.” Nightmare Moon glanced over to the ponies that were tied up and couldn’t get to their feet at all. Drake was tied at the feet and his arms behind his back with strong thick rope; he looked up at Discord who stood over him.  
“Well, look at you now Drake. not so tough without the Princess to protect you now are you?” he cackled at Drake and looked towards Celestia who was still dazed but was trying to get to her feet, Drake glanced to where Discord was looking and saw Celestia lying on the floor.  
“Ce…CELESTIA!” Drake cried out and was able to get to his feet and he tried to sprint towards her.  
Nightmare Moon’s eyes widened as her vision snapped from Drake towards her fallen sister, she lifted her hind legs up and just like Applejack had done to the apple trees ages ago; Nightmare Moon bucked Drake with enough force to wind him completely and send him flying across the room, he smacked against the wall and landed in a heap.  
“Ooh hoo hoo! That was brilliant!” Discord laughed and bounced on the spot with excitement.  
“Thank you Discord.” She took it in pride and smiled to herself.  
“What shall we do with you lot then?” Discord turned his attention back on the ponies that were tied up and slowly coming around.  
“Le…leave them…” Drake coughed violently.  
“SHUT UP!” Nightmare Moon yelled and shot a bright green bolt from her horn at Drake, he flipped over in mid-air by the blast and landed on his front, he didn’t move and wasn't breathing.  
“That….Was….AWESOME!” Discord cheered and ran over to Drake, he put his lion paw against Drakes chest, it wasn't moving. He was dead. “What was that?”  
“Concentrated Radiation blast.” She said smugly to herself.  
Celestia had come around just in time to see Drake being murdered; she was speechless as tears rolled down her cheeks and onto the floor.  
“Dr…DRAKE!” she screamed in heartbreak, she couldn’t take it in, he was alive…and now he was dead. All because of HER sister, and she would destroy her for it. She felt the anger and sorrow tear through her like a wild animal, she raced forwards but was stopped by the chains bolting her to the floor, but it didn’t stop her screaming with all her might.  
“YOU HEARTLESS BITCH! I’LL DESTROY YOU! HE WAS YOUR FRIEND!” she continued to scream with all her might until her throat was hoarse.  
“Kill them all Nightmare.” Discord yawned, “I’m going to bed for a bit. Just make sure you dispose of the bodies.” Discord sauntered out of the room and down the hall.  
Celestia was breathing heavily; she was pulling with all her might on the chains hoping to break them.  
“Let me be free, a fair fight to the death!” she growled at her younger sister.   
Nightmare Moon chuckled and stepped sideways out the door to see if Discord had gone, she waited a few seconds while constantly glancing at Drake who was flat out on the floor.  
“Ok…he’s gone.” She said quickly and used her magic to shut the doors.   
Celestia screamed when Drake suddenly sharply took in breath and sat up.  
“Crying out loud, I thought I was actually going to die.” He coughed heavily as he stood up, his stomach was bruised all over from Nightmare Moons kick.  
“I am so sorry for kicking you Drake.” She apologised quickly and helped him up.  
“At least he’s gone and we’re inside.” Drake fell sideways but quickly made it look like he was running towards Celestia, he gave her the biggest hug he could muster up. He pulled the chains and did everything he could to them but they wouldn’t budge. “Nightmare! They won’t release!” he shouted softly to her, he knew guards would be walking around and might hear him.  
“Give me a minute!” she called back as she undid the collar on Twilight Sparkle, she instantly ran to her friends who were helping each other out of their bondages.   
“I missed you girls so much!” she cried heavily as she ran full pelt into the biggest group hug in all of Equestria.  
Nightmare Moon galloped over to the chains that held Celestia down and fired a bolt of lightning from her horn into the large lock the held all the chains around her. They fell away quickly and with a heavy clinking sound.  
“We need to go…NOW!” Nightmare Moon cried out and the whole group ran or flew out the doors into the outside world.  
“HEY!” a voice cried out from behind them, they all snapped around to see who called them, three Discordian guards were startled to see every single pony galloping out of the castle. In return, Nightmare Moon, Celestia and Rarity fired three spells from the horns and struck each guard with rapid succession.  
Nightmare’s guard smacked against the wall and blood seeped from its mouth, Celestia’s guard was knocked unconscious and Rarity’s guard was tied up in a vast amount of ribbons.  
“I may be furious and full of adrenaline, but I am still a lady!” Rarity cried out and they carried on running.  
They had reached the Everfree forest when they collapsed into stitches and had to stop to breath and slow down.   
“Ok…plan…get them out…went…went….” Nightmare Moon gasped.  
“It went…good…” Applejack finished.  
“We did it though.” Rainbow Dash was lying in the mud trying to get her breath back.  
Twilight was so close to her teacher Celestia, that she couldn’t be anywhere closer to her. Princess Celestia’s eyes scanned the group for where Drake was, suddenly her eyes flew wildly around because she couldn’t see him.  
“WHERE’S DRAKE?” she cried out. Everypony was looking around for him now.  
“I thought he was with you.” Nightmare Moon replied.  
Back at the castle, Drake was looking around a corner down a long hall with a white door at the end. He had left the group as soon as they ran out the front doors and stuck around to see if he could get anything else.  
“Dam it.” He said very quietly to himself as he was almost seen by a unicorn guard who walked right past him. He became very silent, he didn’t move and didn’t breathe, the guard suddenly stopped and stood on the spot for a few seconds before trotting off. Drake breathed a sigh of relief and turned the corner sharply to walk lightly and briskly down the hall.  
He pressed himself against the door to hear if there was anypony behind it, he couldn’t hear anypony, but as he went to push the door open; it became jammed.  
“Locked…” Drake whispered to himself, he had a habit of muttering to himself. He tried once more to open the door but it still wouldn’t open. He walked to the edge of the hall, there was nopony anywhere near him so he ran back at the door and leapt into the air.  
BANG!  
The door flew open with force and he fell into the dark room, he sat up and shut the door quickly, hoping that nopony heard it. His eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness and he could see the shadowed outline of a large square object. He crept forwards until he could place his hands on it and found out it was actually a chest.  
As he opened it, his eyes full upon five beautiful necklaces and a magnificent diadem.   
“The elements of harmony.” Drake smiled in awe as he picked them up and did his best to fold the necklaces and stash them into his pockets.  
The galloping of hooves made Drake jump almost out of his skin as he was holding the diadem in his right hand very tightly. The door had swung open on its own and he could see about a dozen Discordia guards running full pelt at him, and they saw him as well.  
“FREEZE! YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!” one of the guards yelled.   
Drake turned on the spot to find another way out, suddenly his legs gave way and he felt like he was falling, a screeching filled his ears and his vision became so blurry he couldn’t see anything at all. He prayed for it to stop, he wished for the spinning to cease but it kept getting faster and faster and then suddenly….CRASH!  
Princess Celestia was standing in the middle of the library with her best student Twilight Sparkle and her friends, Nightmare Moon stood at the edge of the room glancing out at the constantly changing night sky, the stars were dying, one by one they blinked out of existence. She would be looking at one of them and then out of the corner of her eye, she would spot another die.  
Philomeena had been flying in and out all night through the top floor window, she had been dropping off parchments of paper on the floor into a large heap.  
“We need to go back….” Rainbow Dash began but was cut off by Nightmare Moon.  
“It’s too dangerous.” She replied from staring out of the window. Her sister hadn’t taken to being friendly with her since they had been reunited again, she couldn’t face it.  
Princess Celestia watched over Twilight as she slept on the couch, she was exhausted and the princess was just thankful that she was still alive.  
The princess was rubbing her head constantly for the past few seconds when Applejack picked up on it.  
“Princess, are you ok?” Applejack asked, the princess tried to stop rubbing her head, but it kept agitating her too much.  
“Yes, thank you Applejack, I just…have this headache…it’s nothing.” She tried to reassure Applejack, but the headache was getting worse.  
“You don’t look like you’re ok.” Rarity was half asleep on the couch next to her best friend, but she knew the Princess didn’t look well.  
“I’m fine!” she snapped. “It’s just…I’ve felt this before…but…”  
CRASH!  
Everypony jumped about a foot in the air as the room flashed white light everywhere and the splintering of wood echoed around them.  
“WHO GOES THERE!” Nightmare Moon yelled, she and her sister had their magic at the ready to defend themselves and the ponies.  
The light died down and they could see a body laying amongst the wreckage of the front door. A body with black hair.  
“DRAKE!” the princess cried as she galloped over to him, she used her magic to toss away the broken pieces of the door, she slowly pulled him up into a sitting position, everypony saw as he stood up that a necklace fell out of his pocket and onto the floor. This necklace had a red lightning bolt as its main piece. He had also dropped a golden diadem onto the floor as he appeared out of nowhere.  
But as he stood up, everypony saw that he had a large piece of wood dug into his left arm, it was from the door he had crashed through and it was dug in deep.  
Philomeena flew down from the top floor and landed next to Princess Celestia as she placed him on the couch where Rarity had given up for him. Philomeena began to peck at the wood and let a few tears fall onto his open wound as she plucked the wood out more and more.  
His wound was slowly healing and he was slowly coming around.  
“Princess….” He whispered and Princess Celestia flung her front legs around him to hold him in a hug.  
“Where the hay have you been?” she cried and Drake pulled out the rest of the necklaces from his pocket.  
“I got them…we can destroy him now…” he whispered and noticed the parchments on the floor. “Are those…”  
“Philomeena has been bringing them here all night.” Drake stood and walked over to the parchment pile, his face lit up with a bigger smile every time he read each letter.  
“Who are they from? And what do they say?” Nightmare Moon asked.  
“I sent them to a few other ponies that may be willing to help us.” He turned to face them. “They all say yes.” His eyes lit up with happiness. “I think…I think we may have an army.”


	20. The End?

The night had ended and the sun had risen, it was slowly looking to be a better sight in Equestria, Twilight and Spike held each other as they slept peacefully, Applejack had her hat over her eyes and Pinkie Pie’s mane had sprung back into its cotton candy shape. Rarity and Rainbow Dash were sleeping against each other and Fluttershy was snoring quietly on the floor rug.  
Drake was fiddling with Pinkie Pie’s necklace in his fingers, he was bending it gently back and forth as he listened to Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon, Philomeena was cleaning her wings on top of Drakes shoulders. He laid against the sofa only half listening to them, most of it was arguing.  
“If we set up a front here….”   
“NO! We must attack from here?”  
“What do you know about attack? You haven’t attacked ever!”  
“I’m proud of it!”  
“I took care of Equestria far more than you did!”  
Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon only stopped arguing when they saw Drake and Philomeena doing nothing but staring at them.  
“You know he’s winning right?” he stated.  
“Not if we can help it.” Nightmare Moon replied.  
“If I can help it.” Celestia growled.  
“I want this to end as well.” Nightmare Moon argued.  
Both sisters yelped as Philomeena flashed them both with strong rays of sunlight.  
“If you don’t mind girls.” He spoke down at them like they were squabbling foals. “I’ll decide what happens.” He stood up and placed the necklace on the table.  
“We need to fight him.” Nightmare Moon growled.  
“I agree, but it might put ponies lives in danger if we attack straight on.” Drake added. “Nightmare, is Discord supposed to be in public anytime soon?” he turned to face the dark alicorn.  
“Not that I know of.” She replied. “But the castle will be filled with the guards, we can finish them off.”  
“Something doesn’t seem right though.” Drake stated as he quickly walked over to a window, he too began to watch the stars as they were blinking out. “Stars blinking out of existence, I’ve seen that before, it was…a story I guess…but if it’s the same here, I don’t think Discord is our main threat here.”  
“Then what is?” Nightmare Moon began to walk towards Drake, but Celestia got there first and wrapped a white wing around him.  
“Do you know of something called Kingdom Hearts?” he thought he was being stupid and defiantly felt it.  
“I’ve heard of it, but only through small pieces of writing.” Nightmare Moon replied.  
“Because I keep dreaming of it, only in this world but to keep dreaming of the same dam thing must be caused by something.” He liked feeling Celestia’s feathers against his skin, they felt like strong rays of sunlight.  
“I have to admit, it could be a message or something, describe this dream.” Nightmare Moon asked for Drake to do so.  
“Ok…I’m in an old building made of stone with broken windows and a keyblade, there’s no one and nopony anywhere near me, just myself and this keyblade.” It was a bland description but there was nothing to go into details of for it.  
“That sounds like the ancient royal castle of the pony sisters.” Nightmare Moon stood next to Drake and Celestia pulled him a tiny bit closer to her.  
“Take me there.” Drake watched as another star disappeared into the night sky.  
“It’s in the Everfree forest though.” Celestia told him.  
“I wasn't scared then and I’m not now. I need to go there, something is clearly drawing me there and it wants me.” Drake breathed deeply.  
“This sounds like a trap.” Princess Celestia said as she tried to guide Drake off away from the window and from Nightmare Moon.  
Drake was still listening to Celestia and Nightmare moon arguing, but their squabbling soon didn’t matter to him, he was looking as a glass of water that Pinkie Pie had been drinking, it was still half full and ripples were echoing across it.  
“That’s odd.” He said.  
Suddenly and without any signs of warning, the whole library began to shake violently, the ponies and spike woke suddenly from their peaceful sleeping and were panicking, so was Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon, and Drake dodged the falling books and helped everypony scurry out of the library and into the outside.  
But he had taken them outside as an entire platoon of Discords guards were standing all around the library, Discord himself was flying above them all.  
“You take my prisoner and my treasure and believe you can get away with it?” Discord boomed across to Drake and the ponies, Princess Celestia fired a strong bolt of power from her horn to which Discord grabbed it and bolted it back at her. It struck her with tremendous force and smashed her into the ground.  
“CELESTIA!” Drake and Twilight Sparkle screamed and ran to her side.  
She was dazed and unconscious but Drake could feel a pulse still.  
“Twilight, get the elements and destroy him.” He whispered to her.  
“Ah yes, the elements of Harmony!” Discord cried out and as if he had been holding them the entire time, they appeared in his claw.  
“Dam it.” Drake said quietly to himself.  
Discord walked over to Nightmare Moon who was looking straight at him.  
“You go against me and that will receive the worst torture I can imagine.” Discord snarled at her.  
“Better than the world we live in.” she growled back him.  
He straightened his back from bending over to snarl at Nightmare Moon.  
“Take them all back to the castle for execution.” He spoke to the guards who immediately grabbed the ponies but one of them took a strong kick to the face as Drake laid it into them.  
He lunged forwards dodging the guards attempts at grabbing him, he was after the elements.  
SCHLICK!  
He stopped and hung in mid-air, a warm liquid drenched his torso as he quivered to look down at where Discord had rammed the Element of Magic into his stomach.  
“I win.” Discord whispered to Drake and let him fall into the mud with a splat.  
He was passing out from the lack of blood, but he could still see the ponies screaming with all their might as Drake lay dying in the mud.  
This is it, he thought to himself.   
He had never thought it’d end like this, he always thought they’d win, the good guys always do. But he guessed fate and forgotten this time. His eyes fell to the diadem sticking out of his stomach covered in red liquid.  
He rolled onto his back just in time to watch Philomeena circling him like a vulture.  
“Simple and…clean is…the way…you make me feel tonight…” he sung to himself as tears ran down his cheeks. He closed his eyes and began to relax; he let the darkness take him and the death that awaited him.


	21. Waking up

The doors to the main hall of Discords castle flung open and six ponies, two Alicorns and a small purple dragon were flung forwards by white guards shooting sparks at their hooves as they leapt forwards.  
“I have really had it with you ponies messing with my plans.” Discord was tired of them now, his voice was not its usual fun self, but now more bored. “Bring my axe.” He snarled to one of the guards who ran off in a mighty hurry.  
“Please…Please…” Princess Celestia begged to Discord who grinned at her. “Please…kill me but leave them alone…” tears stung her eyes, her last request.  
“Nah, you’ve all been messing with my laws.” He turned his back on them and was tapping his foot, waiting for his soldier to return.  
“What laws?” Applejack asked as she tried to get up.  
“I don’t know…I’ll make them up later.” He laughed and walked over to a long table with a multi coloured sheet on it, he snatched up a chicken wing and bit into it, crunching through the bone like it was a marshmallow.  
“Discord please! Don’t hurt them!” Nightmare Moon yelled.  
“Oh shut up, you’re after your sister so I wouldn’t get too comfortable if I were you.” He snapped at her. She lowered her head a bit but didn’t take her eyes off him.  
“Do you think this is it sugar cube?” Applejack whispered to Twilight Sparkle. It was only then that the western pony saw that her best friend was crying silently.  
“I…I really loved being your friend Applejack.” Twilight smiled to her.  
“You were more than just mah friend Miss Sparkle.” Applejack returned her teary smile. “Ya’ll were my best friends.” She galloped shortly over to the other side of the group were Twilight was sitting and latched onto her into an almighty last hug.  
“Ooh, gag, you ponies are all so soft and sappy.” Discord pretended to be vomiting and swaying from side to side. “Ah, my axe!” Discord said in awe as he saw that his unicorn guard had returned with his axe, it was a long wooden dark handle with a black blade on the top with dry blood across the edge.  
Everypony was watching it as Discord swung it around carelessly.  
“Get on the floor.” He pointed at Twilight Sparkle who shuffled back a bit.  
“NO!” Princess Celestia screamed, everypony turned to look at her. “Kill me, not them.” She told Discord as she trotted bravely over to him and lay down upon the floor.  
Discord used his axe to gently and softly flick the hairs on Princess Celestia’s white neck, then he roughly stomped his hoof foot onto her neck, she flattened out on the black marble floor underneath the fake starry sky like a rundown bird.  
“After this, I’m still killing them.” He grinned and Celestia gasped as Discord raised the axe high into the air.

  
Philomeena circled the dying 17 year old as he watched her from below in the mud. She swooped down in a majestic arc of sunlight and landed next to his chest, she starred at the diadem protruding from his stomach and breathed deeply; as she breathed out it sounded sort of like a small part of a mystical song.  
She fluttered her wings and bent down to nudge him, but he did not return the nudge back, nor did he even move.  
Philomeena looked up into the sky and saw the sun swiftly moving across the sky, she turned around to see all the homes burnt up and the graveyard behind the ex-sweet shop filled to the edges with grave stones.   
The sunlight was blocked quickly and then flashed back again as an object blocked it for a split second, Philomeena looked up at the flying creature and saw the thick black shadow of a creature, it was larger than a pony by about half and a thin tail followed its large body. She sung loudly and the creature changed its direction swiftly and dived down towards her and Drake.  
When it landed Philomeena could see that it was a Griffin, half eagle and half lion. This griffin though Philomeena had seen before around Equestria, she was known as Gilda to many ponies in ponyville and as a trouble maker. Philomeena had delivered a letter from Drake to Gilda the night before.  
Philomeena looked at the wide eyed griffin quickly and then slowly down at Drake who was laying in the mud. It didn’t take long at all for Gilda to know what had happened, she bowed her head in a state of ‘I’m sorry’ towards the phoenix.  
“I honestly thought we had found somepony who could’ve turned this all around.” She whispered quietly to Philomeena who nodded slowly in return.  
Gilda was wearing a saddle bag that had been fitted for griffin size on her back, she pulled out, using her wings to hold the flaps open, a small white parchment. She grabbed it with her claw and thought about just dropping it on the floor, but when she saw the mud, she placed it gently upon Drakes chest.  
“Excuse me.” A small western accent came from behind them, Gilda turned quickly around to tell them to buzz off, but then she saw that the voice belonged to a stallion with a western hat on and was also carrying a rolled up parchment. “I hate to be a bother, but I noticed that you had a scroll…oh dear…” he saw the body of Drake on the floor when he looked for the scroll her had spoken of.   
“He sent one to you too?” Gilda asked in a grizzly voice.  
“Sure did…ah thought I was the only one though.” He sat down on the dry bit of grass and looked upon Drake’s corpse in sadness.  
“I thought the same too.” Gilda replied. “Got a name?” she asked.  
“Mah names Braeburn, ah came here as fast as I could gallop when I replied to his letter from his bird.” He removed his hat and held it with his hoof next to his chest. “But I see now that I didn’t get here in time.”  
“It’s that Discord creature, the griffin race has been badly affected by him and his chaos.” She glared at the castle that was just a pin prick on the horizon.  
“You can say that again.” A female voice came from the side this time, both Braeburn and Gilda slowly turned their heads to look at who the voice came from, two Pegasus ponies who also had the same type of rolled up parchments with them trotted forwards, one of them had an aquatic blue mane while the other had a flaming orange mane.  
“And you two are?” Gilda rudely asked.  
“My names Spitfire, and this is Soarin.” The female Pegasus pony replied.  
“I see that Drake sent you a letter as well.” Soarin stated as he saw both the parchments from Braeburn and Gilda.  
“He asked for help, and ah couldn’t say no, Discord has turned mah whole town upside down…literally.” Braeburn replied.  
“How many letters did he send?” Gilda wondered if these ponies would know at all.  
“I’m guessing more than just a few.” Another voice came from the right hoof side this time and they all turned to see a pink alicorn and a stallion with brilliantly polished armour with a blue mane.  
“I heard about you, mah cousin was at your wedding.” Braeburn said as he recognised the description that Applejack had put in a letter to him after she had been to a royal wedding that she just ‘couldn’t wait to tell him about.’  
“We were on our honeymoon when chaos started to stir its ugly head, and then three weeks after defending our home we got a letter from a certain Drake asking for help in Ponyville.” Shining Armour added.  
“Ah’m guessing he wanted to fight Discord.” Braeburn said as he looked down on the boy in the mud.  
“Don’t tell me you all received a letter as well?” another female voice sounded again, this one belonged to a figure that slowly descended from the clouds down to them.   
This one, Princess Cadenza and Shining Amour recognised at once as Queen Chrysalis from their almost ruined wedding day.  
“You got one as well?” the princess bellowed at the queen.  
“I came not for you or your husband.” She sneered. “But to fight that mad creature in the castle, he has been force feeding my children the foulest stressful energy in all of Equestria and send half of them insane.”   
“We have at least a small army.” Gilda replied.  
“My sister Twilight wrote to me about this…this…creature called Drake and told me how wonderful and Brave he was not a few weeks ago, I never thought he could have convinced us all to come here though.” Shining Armour said aloud to everypony and Gilda.  
“But he’s dead now, we have no pony to guide us.” Queen Chrysalis said to him.  
“I was captain of Princess Celestia’s royal guard, I can give us tactics.” Shining Armour replied.  
“Then we need to advance upon that castle.” Gilda glared once again at the eye sore on the horizon, they all nodded and either galloped or began to fly towards Canterlot.  
  
Now Philomeena was on her own, she sat looking upon Drakes draining face, it was slowly losing its colour and becoming paler by every minute that ticked by.  
Philomeena looked around her and remembered how happy Princess Celestia had been when she was either around Drake, or spoke about him to her while she prepared herself to go to sleep and talked to her faithful pet.  
And it was true; Philomeena had always been faithful to Princess Celestia and would stop now. She glanced at the diadem sticking out of Drake and then looked around her.  
This could all stop, but Philomeena knew she would not be around to see it. She took a deep breath as her wings began to shimmer in the sunlight, sort of like the last light of day at dusk.   
Her whole body glowed brightly as she was ready to give her life, and she plunged her beak into Drakes chest.  
His body gave a small shudder from the impact, and then the most brilliant thing happened.  
He was breathing, not much but he defiantly breathing.  
His eyes twitched open and his cloudy blue eyes fell upon Philomeena, her body fading into sun rays.  
The element of magic that was sticking out of Drake’s stomach dissolved itself into fine grains of silvery powder that then quickly turned into a shiny liquid, it slopped down into his gash and into his body. The element of magic was nothing now as it was gone completely.  
Philomeena’s body gave a loud POOF and was now just a large sprinkling of beautiful golden dust that floated across Drake’s body and was absorbed into his skin.  
As his strength returned in a hurry, Drake sat up but his body had been dead for some time so it was stiff and he couldn’t see out of his eyes correctly, they were clouded and he was blind. His chest hurt as it rose and fell and his stomach was numb from it downwards.   
The only thing he could see out of his eyes was his hands, which he had to put very close to his face to see them, it was like he was looking of thick jars still with honey in them.  
But even still, he could see that his hands were odd, they were….glowing…they couldn’t be though, but it looked like it.  
They looked like rainbow steam was flowing through them and he had dived into a very VERY hot bath of rainbow water and now his body was cooling off.  
He flopped back into the mud and raised his hands into the air like he was reaching for the sky. He gave a loud groan like a zombie would and then…his body acted like a gigantic flame thrower, his arms became rainbow flames that soared high into the sky and shook the ground with tremendous force.  
The pain though…was unbearable as he screamed for everything that he was worth, to describe it would have meant to concentrate on the pain, and that would have been too much to bear. If he had to put it into words though, his skin felt like it was being thrown around in a tornado of incredibly sharp razor blades and his arms and legs had large blades tied to the tops of them and being forced downwards; cutting his limbs open.  
He breathed deeply and gave one last scream and the pain instantly died down, every singly muscle in his body was screaming in pain and his mind had every single memory being refilled into his head.  
He didn’t have a clue what just happened, but he knew one thing.  
  
He was alive.  
  
And Discord was as well.  
  
And that had to change tonight!


	22. Drake VS Discord

Discord pressed his foot deeper into Princess Celestia’s windpipe forcing her to gag and fight for breath, her eyes bulged and her lips turned blue, but even chocking against Discords hoof she refused to beg to him.  
  
“Such a pity, you were never strong enough on your own to defeat me.” He released the pressure on her throat and she heavily gasped for breath, her front legs tried to push herself up but discord kicked them so she fell flat on her stomach again.  
  
“Please Discord! Get off her!” he heard Twilight Sparkle scream at him, desperate to help her tutor and Princess.   
  
He sighed deeply and spun the axe on its head, aggravated by Twilights outburst but was only surprised that she had been the first to cry out instead of Luna.  
  
He licked his tooth and gripped the handle of the axe in his talon claw, swinging it wildly above his head made Twilight shut up as the axe was brought down viciously just inches from Princess Celestia’s muzzle, the blade dug into the marble floor and left Discord to silence Twilight Sparkle properly.   
  
He spun around and using his lizard leg, he swiped at Twilight and kicked her deeply in the stomach leaving her too gasping to breath. He was laughing menacingly as Twilights friends stood in front of her, Rainbow Dash tried to do an Ariel attack on Discord but with just a click of his fingers she was grounded with a hefty thump!  
  
“If you hurt my sister I swear, I will devour you!” Nightmare Moon yelled at the top of her voice, in this form she was pretty terrifying but Discord paid to attention to her words and just to prove it, he kicked Princess Celestia in her windpipe which caused her to cough blood onto the floor.  
  
“How does it feel bitch?” he spat on her then bent down to grab her muzzle just to torture her again. “How does it feel to die? Because that’s how I felt when we last battled, how I bled that day and you…you just walked away leaving me in stone.”   
  
Discord stood up but still kept his eyes locked on her, no pony behind him made a sound, no pony moved or even breathed in tension.  
  
He delivered another powerful kick to her stomach this time, leaving her coughing heavily.   
  
“HOW…DOES…IT…FEEL…BITCH!” Discord screamed and with every breath he took in between his words, he delivered another fierce kick to her stomach.  
  
Princess Celestia’s mouth was now filled with blood and her teeth were lined with it as well, but still no one said a word.  
  
Discord wiped away some spit where he had shouted so much at her. he relaxed his body and composed himself, straightening his back and removing the axe from the marble floor.  
  
He could now hear the sobbing of the mane six behind him but it only fuelled him to go on.  
  
Reapplying the pressure onto Princess Celestia’s neck, she chocked on her blood this time and Discord laughed as she did so. He gripped the axe in both hands, his lion paw and his eagle talon, raised it above his head, he breathed out slowly and prepared himself to kill her once and for all.  
  
“Equestria…is mine!” he growled, and then……..  
  
A tremor, nothing big or even able to felt, certainly not by Discord but by the smallest and weakest of the group, Spike the dragon. He felt it, he felt it through his tail to start with, but with Princess Celestia about to executed it didn’t even register to him, but when the tremors grew and he was able to feel them running up his short legs and into his body did he put them down to the grieving he was about to feel, and the loss that was about to occur.   
  
But then Applejack who was standing directly beside him felt them as well, she put them down as anxiety and not grief, but in no time at all though she couldn’t even stand and collapsed in a heap with her friends as the tremors rapidly grew. Nightmare Moon who was pinned to the ground with both a gravity spell on her and a magical dampening curse around her horn was the only mare to spot the table that sat on the back left of the room, it was laid out with fine silver ware and china plates, the plates themselves had now also been affected by the tremors and began to shuffle about on the table and very quickly had gotten so close to the edge that they fell and smashed on the floor.  
  
CRSSHHH!  
  
It was enough for Discord to notice the anomaly and post phone the execution for a few seconds just to make sure that his prisoners were not messing around or had freed themselves from their magical binds.  
  
“What the hell is going on?” Discord complained loudly, it was at this point two guards galloped into the hall, the large purple wooden doors swung heavily and loudly as they crashed against the wall.  
  
“My lord, there has been an attack!” one of the guards informed Discord, she was a unicorn with white fur while the other guard was a stallion with also white fur.  
  
Discord sucked in air through his teeth and his anger grew, in leaps and bounds. How dare any pony attack his castle??? They would surely deal with him personally.   
  
“Who?” Discord growled at them, the anger ran through him and without knowing it, he snapped the wooden shaft of the axe in both his hands.  
  
“Everyone.” Came a very, very familiar voice for Twilight Sparkle, from behind the wall of the hallway outside of the hall stepped a stallion who Twilight was both overjoyed to see and yet feared for him being here.  
  
“I don’t believe we have met. My name…” he removed his purple armour helmet that was lined with a multitude of blue shades of fur, he had white fur but he was not a discordian guard, nor was he menacing. “…Is Shining Armour.”   
  
“GUARDS!” Discord cried out, he threw the just wooden part of the axe shaft at Shining Armour like a javelin, he ducked with time to spare and tossed his helmet across the floor, the shaft clattered behind him and he lowered his head as if he were to charge at Discord.  
  
The two guards leapt out of the cross fire and towards the sides of the hall.  
  
Discord returned by throwing the axe on the floor and charging at Shining Armour with his arms outstretched.  
  
“SHINING ARMOUR!” Twilight screamed for her big brother.  
  
“I got this, kid.” Shining Armour said quietly to her, with eight quick burst of lightning from his horn, Discord was stunned enough for Shining Armour to levitate the wooden shaft Discord had just thrown.  
  
WHACK!  
  
He swung it around and the axe handle smashed against Discords head, sending him crashing onto the floor.  
  
As soon as he hit the floor the magical spells containing Twilight and her friends dissipated, Rainbow Dash was the first to get up, she jumped into the air and stretched her wings.  
  
“That’s what I’m talking about!” she cheered loudly, punching the air.  
  
“ENOUGH!” Discord burst up from the floor and with an enormous surge of energy that exploded from his very body, everyone was thrown clear of the centre of the hall and were now separated from each other. “THIS IS MY WORLD! AND NO ONE WILL MESS IT UP FOR ME!” he screeched loudly, the force from his magic had cracked three of the eight windows in the hall while the others stood firm.  
  
The whole castle shook with Discord’s anger being dispelled from his body and reacted with the matter around him, the tables in the hall trembled, the plates fell onto the floor and the ceiling above them began to become agitated.   
  
The thing is, Discord had manipulated the ceiling a while ago so that instead of a pure white ceiling, it now showed the constellations of stars but each one of those tiny white lights represented a ponies life, it was using this he was able to find out what every pony was doing if he looked in upon their own star, the dark space that floated amongst them had begun to splinter upon Discord’s dark energy flowing from him. There was no telling what the catastrophe would be if the magic bottled up inside it overwhelmed and exploded.  
  
Stretch marks began to appear within the darkness above them and light was seeping through, Twilight knew just by glancing at them that there was little time left. As bad luck had it, the spells to watch creatures without physical telescopes had been outlawed a long time ago for just a few reasons, one of them was that they were very weak in sustainability.  
  
“It’s over Discord!” Shining Armour got to his hoofs, but Discord was not easily deterred just by words.  
  
“Never!” He yelled and with a snap of his fingers, Shining Armour was dragged out of the hall with rapid speed by an invisible force, his front hooves leaving marks in the marble where he tried to get a grip on the floor but to no success. The large purple doors slammed shut behind him and he was locked outside the hall.  
  
“Discord! You let me in right now!” Twilight Sparkle could hear her older brother banging on the doors with his hooves but there was no way he was breaking it down even with magic, Discord had become far too powerful even for herself.  
  
The banging stopped quite quickly though but almost instantly replaced with the centre of the doors being struck repeatedly from Shining Armours side with the use of magical spells.  
  
FO-TSH!  
  
FO-TSH!  
  
FO-TSH!  
  
Another voice came behind the doors, this time though it was a mare.  
  
“Twilight! If you can hear me, get away from the doors!”   
  
It was Princess Cadence’s voice, she too had joined the fight!  
  
“I’m here!” Twilight Sparkle shouted to her sister in law, she was so excited to hear her voice again but Discord quickly put a stop to that.  
  
“Silence!” he shouted, grabbed her by the neck, swung her over his head and threw her back onto the floor with intense force, Twilight was not moving anymore.  
  
“BASTERED!” Spike screamed and launched himself at Discord, the tiny dragon didn’t think he couldn’t make a difference but he only cared that he didn’t protect Twilight from Discord.  
  
Spike grabbed Discords throat and dug his sharp claws into him, inhaling as much air as he could he then turned his attention to blowing searing hot green flames at Discords face hoping to blind him at least or burn him.  
  
“Get off!” Discord grabbed the thrashing baby dragon with one hand and tossed him aside but Fluttershy was too quick to let Spike smack into the floor, she darted behind him and lowered him swiftly but gently onto the floor.  
  
Discord was instantly over run by the mane six’s rage and revenge.  
  
Rainbow Dash attacked first by buffeting him in a barrage of aerial assaults from above, applejack jumped between Discords legs and bucked him from behind, the full force of her sent him flying upwards and into the onslaught by Rarity who her magic to surround Discord with the pieces of plates that had shattered on the floor and sliced him from all different angles.  
  
While Pinkie Pie was spinning around him and hitting him from all sides, Nightmare Moon ran to her sisters aide, she feared the worst but Princess Celestia forced herself to her feet with her sister helping steady her as she did.  
  
“Guards!” Discord screamed again for his guards to help, but the two guards that were still in the room did not help him at all, in fact, they cheered for the Princess when she stood up.  
  
For a split second it was like a breath went around Equestria, the weight of depression, sorrow, anger and hatred dissipated with their true ruler standing once more. Because for the first time in too long, there was one emotion that was impossible to be, but just this once, everyone in Equestria felt something.  
  
Hope.  
  
“You…will not…beat us…” Princess Celestia said quietly at Discord, she was bleeding heavily and her stomach was ruptured but she still retained her will.  
  
“Your body crumbles and your mind is bent.” Discord growled and picked up the axe once more. “So why does your will survive?”  
  
The banging from behind the doors had ceased for the time being and everything went silent, this was it, everything had boiled down now, the ponies, Spike and even Nightmare Moon had stepped back, leaving just Princess Celestia and Discord to fight.  
  
They began to circle each other, waiting patiently for the other to make the first move, neither of them broke eye contact, while Discord pranced and Princess Celestia hobbled.  
  
“I have planned hundreds of years for this moment Celestia, what makes you think you can beat me?” Discord readied a concentrated ball of gamma radiation in his paw, the green glow flowed across half the imaginary circle while princess Celestia failed to produce any powerful spells.  
  
“Because I have friendship on my side.” She said in a confident tone.  
  
Her words meant nothing though when Discord fired his radiation ball at her, a quick shield spell just saved her life but knocked her backwards a few feet.   
  
Her shield looked like a large light blue transparent semi-circle, but with Discord rapidly shooting at her with radiation the shield was cracking under the strength of his magic. It quickly became too much and the shield exploded in front of her face.  
  
Celestia was sent flying and crashed against the wall with quite some speed.  
  
It was just another injury to her but to Discord, it was a victory. He flashed over to her and picked her up by her throat then tossing her like a sack of rotten tomatoes into the middle of the hall, she fell with a squeal and then lay very still.  
  
“Now, it is truly over!”   
  
Discord had his back to the large doors when everyone in the room heard them very slowly, creak open. He gripped what was left of the axe in his hands and spun around ready to face Shining Armour and Princess Cadence.   
  
“Hello again.”   
  
Came a voice that no one ever expected to hear again, stood in the middle of the archway of the hall days was a human in a long grey military trench coat. A human with black hair and blue eyes.  
  
Drake!  
  
“You were dead.” Discord replied, he was confused, he was fairly sure that he had killed him, but maybe humans didn’t die like that?  
  
“Yea I was, now I’m not, problem?” he strutted into the hall and took notice of every pony in it, his gaze fell upon Twilight Sparkle who was lying in the corner of the hall, motionless. “Shining, get Twilight out of here.”   
  
Shining Armour and his wife galloped into the hall from behind the walls, found Twilight Sparkle and carried her out very quickly.  
  
“Thank you.” Shining Armour said to Drake just before they exited.  
  
He waved the three of them out and then refocused his attention to Discord.  
  
“How?” he asked with true confusion.  
  
“You ponies may leave.” He ignored Discords question for the time being and sought to his friends safety.  
  
“All due respect Drake.” Applejack walked towards him, “We ain’t going anywhere.”   
  
Everypony agreed to her words, including the Discordian guards and Spike.  
  
“How?” Discord repeated himself.  
  
“Luna, get Celestia out of here and to safety.” He didn’t look at her but as she moved towards her sister of the sun, Discord placed his hoof leg on Princess Celestia’s neck with pressure.  
  
“She’s mine.” He said, Nightmare Moon stepped back knowing full well that if she fell to Discord as well then Equestria would fall without doubt.  
  
“How?” Discord growled this time, he was becoming impatient.  
  
Drake licked his lips and walked towards Discord without fear, Princess Celestia’s body lay between them as a barrier.  
  
“Her phoenix, amazing creatures are they not? They can heal wounds but they cannot bring back the dead.”   
  
Still Discord did not understand.  
  
“But with some quite serious magic, it could be possible… magic such as the elements of harmony.” Drake spoke to Discord, it was at this point that Discord finally understood.  
  
When Discord had stabbed Drake with the element of magic in order to kill him, he in turn created a physical link between Drake and it, once the healing powers of a phoenix were introduced, he was rescued from death.  
  
“But seriously though, thanks for not stabbing me with any more of the elements because I would probably have exploded!” Drake laughed to himself and began to walk around Discord with no sense of danger at all. Discord kept watching Drake the whole time like he was staring straight at a ghost.  
  
Drake knew that Discord would not let up his gaze so he stood opposite Discord which meant he was facing away from Princess Celestia had time to get up and run away with everyone else. But as usual she refused to leave like every pony else because once she got to her feet, she took up a fighting stance. Ready to fight Discord!  
  
Discord gripped the axe in his claw much tighter now, he lunged at Drake and brought the axe down upon him, but he was much too agile compared to the length Discord was; Drake rolled out of the way and the axe dug into the marble again.  
  
“Stay still!” Discord yelled, unaware that Princess Celestia had enough time to prepare a barrage of sun beams directly to his back, Discord was stunned and collapsed onto the floor.  
  
“Get him Princess!” both the Discordian guards cheered in hope, Discord may have been their leader but he was a tyrant who pushed everyone much too hard.  
  
Drake tried desperately to remove the axe from the floor by pulling on it with all his strength but it just would not budge an inch. By the time he had given up trying, Discord was on his feet and firing radiation balls at the pair of them.  
  
None of them struck their targets but flew narrowly passed their heads as they dodged them by rolling and jumping over them, the balls of radiation blew massive holes into the walls and hall doors behind them. Parts of the castle rained down upon the group of friends that were huddled together, staying put until they knew for sure who the victor was.  
  
“Get out of here now!” Drake shouted at them, but once again they ignored his commands.  
  
“NO!” they all shouted in unison.  
  
“Oh for f…” Drake swore under his breath as the table he had run passed was blown into wood chips and shavings, the explosion was enough to distract Discord for Nightmare Moon to devise a plan to destroy him. She quickly looked around and noticed the ceiling was trembling, like it was shivering with a cold.  
  
Of course!  
  
“Drake! Sister! I always thought the best method of attack is to think with HIGH spirits!” she yelled at them, she was trying to hint at Drake about the ceiling but it went straight over his head.  
  
“Now isn’t the time for drinking!” he shouted back, another radiation ball that was much bigger than the rest grazed his chest, hit the floor with massive force and then detonated with a force that reminded Drake of a grenade.  
  
“Enough running!” Discord yelled, yanked the axe from the floor and lunged towards Drake.  
  
This time though, Drake was not agile enough. The blade of the axe tore straight through his stomach and he collapsed swiftly onto the floor.  
  
“NO!” Princess Celestia screamed and galloped to her friends side.  
  
“YES!” Discord screamed in delight, he had finally killed Drake once and for all and with no phoenix in sight it was fair to say that he was not getting up now.  
  
Princess Celestia used the last flickering of her magic to raise Drake so his head was lifted up.  
  
“I am so sorry Drake, this is my fault.” She cried, he clutched onto the gaping wound as he looked deep into her crying eyes.  
  
“Get…back…” Drake groaned…  
  
“Please, I really am sorry Drake.” Princess Celestia held onto him as tightly as she could, her muscles were so very weak but she still tried her hardest to hug him.  
  
“I know…just…get back…please…” Drake coughed over her shoulder.  
  
He felt warm, which was strange to Princess Celestia, he felt…very warm infact…too warm!  
  
She released her grip on him and saw that his body had begun to glow, it was mild at first but quickly grew into a powerful sunlight that filled the room.  
  
Discord had stopped laughing now, in fact, he was worried.  
  
“What the hell’s going on?” he barked at them both, he watched Drake pick himself up as Celestia did as she was told and gave him a lot of room.  
  
“Last time this happened…I was dead so…didn’t really affect me that much…well…not that I remember anyway…” he looked down at his hands and saw what looked like rapidly billowing steam from every part of him along with a dazzling light.  
  
“WHAT IS HAPPENING?” Discord screamed now, he gripped the axe tighter in his hands, charged at Drake but was knocked cleanly back by Celestia.  
  
“Really hope I’ve got this right…” Drake chuckled to himself.  
  
“Got what right?” Celestia asked, she noticed how heavily the effects of what looked like steam streaming from every part of his visible body.  
  
“Regeneration…”   
  
Those were the last words Drake spoke then, because in just a split second his arms were almost pulled to both sides of him and his head was thrown back, the light from his body was quickly billowing out rainbow flames which licked the ceiling with ease, the flames from his arms begun to scorch the remains of the table.  
  
“NO!” Discord screamed loudly instantly when he saw the rainbow flames, exactly the last thing he saw before he had been turned to stone by the elements of Harmony twice before.  
  
The steam from Drakes body quickly blew away but blew over Princess Celestia and every pony else, their whole bodies felt like they had electricity coursing through them with high speeds, but it was such a great feeling, like they were finally alive!  
  
Everything was over in just a few seconds, the flames were gone and so had the light that radiated from Drakes body.  
  
Princess Celestia was the first to open her eyes, she saw her friend standing alone in the middle of the hall surrounded by glass from the windows and the charred wood from the remains of the tables.  
  
Everything was silent, so when she took a step towards him her hoofs echoed everywhere, she was now about only four feet away when he dropped his arms to his sides and looked at her.  
  
“Drake?” her voice cracked when she spoke.  
  
“Still me.” He replied to her.  
  
Princess Celestia instantly held onto him extremely tightly and didn’t think she would ever let go of him again.  
  
“You’re still alive.” She sobbed with joy, both her wings smothered him and she gripped onto him tightly with her right foreleg.  
  
“Yea I am.” He too was crying with joy, holding onto her as well. “Hey…” he said gently and she let him have some space between the two of them. “You’re healed as well.” He chuckled.  
  
She quickly looked down at her body and inspected her wings, it was true there were no cuts or bruises on her at all. Nothing!  
  
“The element of magic must have healed you as well when you got caught in it.” He smiled, it was like Discord hadn’t laid a claw on her at all.  
  
“I don’t want to disturb you two but we still have Discord to deal with.” Drake looked over to his group of friends who were all standing around a sleeping Discord, it was like he was in a deep coma. Drake looked up to Princess Luna in particular because she didn’t look like Nightmare Moon anymore, instead she looked like her gorgeous dark blue self again.  
  
“Luna! You’re…you!” Drake cried, every pony saw her as who she truly was, Princess Luna. “I guess that element of magic did much more than heal then.” Drake smiled weakly, he may have a new body but he was truly exhausted.   
  
“Yes I am.” She smiled wearily at him as well, every pony was tired and emotionally exhausted.  
  
“I say we destroy him for good.” Spike said timidly.  
  
“How so?” Drake didn’t know why he asked that, he was more than happy to burn Discord right now.  
  
“He tortured my best friend in the whole world.” Spike had been through so much over the past few hours that he couldn’t release anymore tears.  
  
“What say you sister?” Princess Celestia stood next to her sister when she asked.  
  
Princess Luna took a few seconds to decide.  
  
“We have to be better.” She replied, every pony and Drake looked at her. “We lock him up.”  
  
“Everybody agree?” Drake asked aloud, reluctantly everypony very slowly agreed.  
  
It was finally over, no more death and no more hell.


	23. A Time to Chill

“I have never heard of anything like this in my whole life.” Princess Celestia laughed slightly as she and Drake were still holding each other in the throne room. Discord had been moved to the most high security prison in the castle which was an Obsidian encased room filled with sleeping gas that was circulated constantly.   
Drake had just finished his long story to Princess Celestia about how Philomeena gave her life for him and how the element of magic somehow dissolved into him, it sounded weird but it was all her had to go on.  
“We can check the library later for this stuff, but I’m just glad to be alive.” He said to Princess Celestia and nuzzled himself into the side of her chest; she pulled her wing closer to him and held onto him tightly.  
“Well you’re not leaving my sight from now on.” She told him.  
“I’m fine with that.” He replied and put both arms around her. “Is everypony ok now?” he looked up to her through the white feathers.  
“Now you took care of Discord, everypony can relax a bit more; his guards are even stopping their ways and helping the town by re-building homes and farms.” She smiled to him. “Twilight has gone back to the library with Spike, Rarity is still living with the Apple family and their apple farm has replenished itself with Canterlots food growth hormones. Rainbow Dash has a small cloud next to Fluttershys home and Pinkie Pie is planning the Grand Galloping Gala again.” That news was the best thing Drake had heard in so long.  
“I never understood though, those dreams I kept having; about that keyblade and the ruined castle.” He let his grip loosen a bit on her. “What did they mean?”   
“I don’t think we’ll ever know.” It sounded like it would have made Drake really want to know what they meant, but it wasn't the thing that was on his mind right now. The war was over, Discord had lost and everypony was safe.  
He breathed a relaxed sigh and closed his eyes; the princess was staring around the room while Drake had a nap covered by her wings.  
She spotted the large glass stained window of Discord and the wooden Canterlot doors behind the thrones. She chuckled at it.  
“That must be one hay of an indestructible window.” Drake quickly opened his eyes and stood up, letting Celestia’s wings flop over him.  
“How in the hoof is that thing still there?” he asked without turning around.  
“We’ll have it taken down soon don’t worry.” She stood up and trotted over to him to reassure him.  
“That’s not it, look around.” He told her to and she did, all around them were glass shards everywhere.  
“There’s just glass.”  
“Exactly, so why; the glass that’s already been shattered still standing when all the other ones are lying all other the place?” he asked and they both looked around.  
“I guess it was made of stronger glass.” Princess Celestia replied.  
“If it was made of strong glass then it couldn’t have been shattered to look like the wood finish of Canterlots doors.” He looked closer at it and realised something. “Do you lock large city doors with small keys?”  
“That is one of the most ridiculous questions I’ve ever heard of, if we did they would have been broken through by little force.” She retorted and giggled, and then stopped when she saw the small black keyhole. “Design flaw?” she wondered.  
“Nah, look at the immense detail to everything about this window, the glass was SHATTERED to look like WOOD, that takes skill, a manure load of skill to be able to do that. And to slap a small black keyhole right in the middle would have made Discord mad about it, and it would have also have been something the designer would defiantly not have done. So why is there a keyhole?” he looked closer at it, and then it hit him.  
“Oh dam…” he said quietly.  
“What is it?” Princess Celestia walked closer to him.  
“My dreams…a castle with broken windows…” he looked at the shattered glass on the floor. “And a keyblade…” he gripped his keyblade necklace in his right hand.  
“You dreamt of this from the day you came here?” Princess Celestia was freaked out.  
“They weren’t telling me a warning…” and then it really hit him!  
“Of course!” he yelled and jumped up and down.  
“What? What?” Princess Celestia asked hastily.  
“It was showing me where the keyhole to the world was!” they both stared at the black keyhole in the middle of the glass door.  
“Is it locked?” Princess Celestia asked him quietly.   
“No, if it was then I wouldn’t have been able to seep through, but if this hasn’t before, then something has unlocked that…” he sniffed and breathed out.  
“Then that thing needs to be locked.” Princess Celestia pointed her right hoof at the keyhole.  
“You’re the one with the keyblade.” Drake turned to face her and kissed her on the cheek which caused her to blush uncontrollably and bite her lower lip.  
He turned on the spot and walked away to go out the doors, Princess Celestia summoned her white keyblade that sparkled in the sun. she tried to concentrate to imagine the two points of the keyblade and the keyhole together, but her mind kept flicking back to Drake.  
“Ah hay to it!” she said loudly to herself and threw it on the ground with force.   
She galloped out the doors and after Drake.  
She had run out of the castle and onto the broken black marble pathway up to it, Drake was talking to an earth pony with a yellow hard hat on, Princess Celestia was too far away to hear what he was saying but he was pointing at the pathway and then at the castle itself. She walked up to him and Drake cut off the conversation with the earth pony.  
The earth pony walked briskly off to a large group of other earth, unicorn and Pegasus ponies that all had hard hats on. “Alright! That monstrosity is to be demolished and rebuilt as Canterlot Castle!” he yelled to them and they either flew or galloped over to it with pickaxes, shovels and other work tools; some were taking up the marble path and others were beginning to take apart the castle.  
“Princess, I got a question for ya.” Drake piped up.  
“I’ll answer as best as I can.” She replied, her multi coloured mane flowing in the slight breeze that blew across Canterlot.  
“Can we get a swimming pool built in?” he smiled sweetly at her.  
“But Canterlot castle never had one before.” Drake felt like he was losing her on it so he began pouting like he had seen Sweetie Bell do once when he was at Rarity’s. “Fine.” She sighed and turned her attention to the city below them hill that Canterlot was on.  
“You know you’re going to get a backlash of chaos energy in Equestria right?” Drake asked Princess Celestia as he stood next to her and ran his fingers through her mane that swirled around and had rifted around his waist. A large right wing opened widely and grabbed him to pull Drake closer to her.  
“How can you be so sure?” She asked in reply.  
“The element of magic fused with me to bring me back to life, and since it was created out of the purity in Twilight Sparkles heart I have her knowledge running through my head constantly.” He sniffed the air deeply, it didn’t smell like smoke and lemon like it had when Discord ruled it; it smelt more like fresh grass and daisies.  
“Then in what way will we feel the backlash may I ask?” she looked at his black shirt and red trousers, both torn and caked in mud both dry and still wet.  
“I can’t tell for sure, but it could be something like heavy storms, or something scarier like tornados or even….” He looked up at the sky and said quietly. “….Snow.”


	24. Invitations

It was mid-day in the middle of summer and in the library, Twilight Sparkle was sleeping in her warm bed while Spike cleaned the bookshelves and wrote a list of books for them, as none were left because they had been burnt for Spike to keep himself warm. Her snoring was quiet as it always had been, and she was defiantly sleeping longer than normal, but Spike wouldn’t ever dare to tell her otherwise after what Discord had put her through.  
Spike had lit a fire using firewood that Big Macintosh had brought over because of the freezing snow storms that swept over Equestria; it had started three days ago and hadn’t stopped. Some ponies enjoyed it while others enjoyed staying inside sipping hot chocolate next to a warm fire.  
He was cleaning the downstairs when there was a knock at the door.   
Spike dropped the feather duster he was using and went to open it but was gusted by a blast of cold air and snow that danced inside and died down when he shut the door, he had let in a tall creature with dark hair who he knew extremely well by now.  
“Oh, hi Drake, what brings you here?” Spike greeted him as Drake wiped the snow from his long black over coat, Spike had been to Rarity’s the day before and saw Drake buying some new clothes that were mainly of dark colours but he didn’t have anything else to wear.  
“Good day Spike, I was just popping by to deliver a letter from the Princess Sisters and me for you and Twilight Sparkle.” He pulled a white envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Spike who took it gently in his claws.   
“What’s it for?” Spike asked.  
“The Grand Galloping Gala at Canterlot castle, it was interrupted last time so this one is the make up for it.” He smiled before glancing up to the second floor. “How’s Twilight doing?” he asked quietly.  
“She’s been better, last night though she had a bad case of nightmares and woke up screaming, frightened me to death…I mean, I wasn’t scared, I’m a tough dragon.” Spike puffed out his chest and Drake chuckled.  
“I don’t doubt that you aren’t Spike, give her my best wishes when she wakes up.” He smiled to the small purple Dragon and said his farewell to Spike and quickly left through the front door hoping not to bring in anymore snow.  
Spike breathed deeply and placed the letter on the table in the kitchen next to the vase of roses that a stallion by the name of Star Gazer had left for Twilight.  
  
On Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack was huffing at the snow that had already set about a 20 cm of snow around the farm and the rest of Equestria, some had gotten heavier snow but Applejack didn’t like it once bit, not when they were still trying to regrow all their produce. She was sitting in her room on her bed with a cup of hot chocolate staring out at the trees with their slow growing apples already on the trees, Zecora had been to their farm and given the apple family a mixture to coat the trees in to make the apples grow faster, Applejack didn’t approve of messing with the apple trees but knew if they didn’t they might starve.   
She heard a door open downstairs and tried to listen for who it was, there were mumbling voices and then light footsteps coming up the stairs. Applebloom popped her head around Applejacks bedroom door.  
“Hey sis, there’s somepony here for you.” She said loudly and rushed back out.  
Applejack slowly placed her hot chocolate down on her bedside table and made her way downstairs, making sure not to trip over her own hooves.  
Her face lit up when she saw Drake standing in the hall in a big black coat and talking to her big brother.  
“Drake! it’s an honour having you in our home!” Applejack cried and rushed over to him to give him a small hug.  
“Thanks Applejack, I came by to give you and your family this.” He pulled out a white envelope and handed it to Applejack who grabbed it in her teeth and then handed it to Big Macintosh who walked out the hallway and into the kitchen.  
“How’s Twi doing?” she asked him politely, hoping to hear something of her.  
“I heard from Spike that she had a rough night of nightmares last night, but I’ll talk to Zecora for some calming tea herbs and it will help her sleep just fine.” He glanced at Applejacks side and couldn’t see her ribs that brought a smile to his face, but not a creepy kind of smile.  
“Are we allowed visiting times?” she asked.  
“I think she’d love seeing you more than the walls of her library.” He nodded to her. “I need to leave now, hope to see you soon.” He waved goodbye to her and left through the front door.  
  
Rainbow Dash was flying above the town of Ponyville and through the snow clouds to create a rainbow effect behind her, she was always happiest flying at these kinds of speeds and was more than excited to be flying high again with the Princesses back in control.  
Her rainbow mane flowed in the fast speeds and her tail was pulled so it was as straight as an arrow, she dived down and then soared up over the school to create a sonic boom that echoed through the town and left a circular rainbow that soared across the sky.  
She smiled though when she saw a figure on the ground waving at her in a long black coat that she recognised easily. She swooped down and landed in the snow that covered up her cyan blue hooves.  
“Enjoying the weather Drake?” Rainbow Dash joked with him, he smiled at her and dug his hands into the black coats pockets and fumbled around in them.  
“I love the snow…only when I’m inside though, Princess Luna makes the best hot chocolate in all of Equestria.” He smiled to her and pulled out a white envelope, he handed it to her and she tucked it under her wing for the time being.  
“Oh, if you get a chance, head on over to sugar cube corner, Pinkie Pie does awesome hot chocolate.” She fluttered her left wing to get the snow off it while she held the letter under her right wing.  
“I’m heading over to there now to deliver her a letter now, so I’ll see her then.” He glanced off into the distance at where Sugar Cube Corner was sitting with a lot of snow on its roof.  
“Ooh, I have to ask, what’s it like living with the royal sisters?” she moved a bit closer to hear everything.  
“It’s brilliant, Princess Luna has turned back into her usual self so she’s always kind, and Princess Celestia is so warm that last night I fell asleep against her.” The snow swirled around them and tickled Rainbow Dash’s nose. “How’s the Pegasus coping with the freak snow storm?”  
“It’s weird, there are no clouds in the sky, so it isn’t coming from anywhere; but it’s like it just appears out of nowhere.” She looked up at the sky, trying not to get snow in her eyes. Drake looked up and it was true, no clouds at all.  
“There’s nothing to be afraid of though Rainbow, all it is the world is having a backlash of the chaos energy that discord was pumping into Equestria, so when Princess Celestia and Luna took it back, it kind of had a small fit due to the chaos suddenly disappearing, so this is just so Equestria doesn’t turn itself inside out.” He replied.  
“Wow.” She tilted her head to the side, “You really sound like Twilight.” They both laughed at this.  
“Well with half her mind running alongside mine, I don’t doubt that I do.”  
“What’s that like? Having two minds?” Rainbow Dash asked as she flicked her tail to get snow out of it.  
“It’s fun in way, I know everything she did up until the element of magic was re-found so it’s like a really well organised library.” He smiled, “I should be heading off to see Pinkie Pie then, see ya later.” He waved to her and she put the letter in between her teeth and flew off with great speed.  
  
Pinkie Pie was helping the Cakes prepare the shop for reopening, since Discord had ordered no party food before, the shop had been boarded up and shut down; now the Princesses were back in charge the shop could be opened again to the public.   
While Mr and Mrs Cake had many delightful foods set baking in the oven and added icing to cake and cupcakes, Pinkie Pie was setting streamers up along the walls when the bell above the door chimed and in stepped a tall figure in a long black coat, as he brushed the snow off his sleeves, Pinkie Pie leapt from her ponyified step ladder and bounced into his open arms.  
“Drake! It’s been too long!” Pinkie Pie cried as she leapt into a very snowy hug from Drake. Her front hooves were over his shoulders and her hind legs wrapped around his chest so she was sort of like a leech holding on for dear life. Drake held her from underneath with both arms but because she was holding on so tightly, he didn’t have to lift her up, but he did keep his arms under her in case she let go suddenly.  
“Far too long without my favourite pink pony around.” He replied and let her hug tighten just a tiny bit. He couldn’t describe how happy he felt seeing her mane back into its usual cotton candy swirl shape that it was when she was the Pinkie Pie that he knew, rather than when her hair became flat and hung like a pink curtain down the side of her face.  
“It’s an honour to have you in our shop your highness.” Mrs Cake did a deep bow by letting her front hooves slide forwards across the floor. Drake placed Pinkie Pie on the floor and stuck a horizontal palm out towards Mrs Cake.  
“Thank you, but I’m not royalty.” He smiled and dug his hands into his coat pocket, after a brief second, he pulled out a white letter and handed it to Pinkie Pie who bit it with her teeth.  
“Thankth aloth Drakth.” Pinkie Pie tried to speak with the letter in her mouth which caused Drake to laugh loudly.  
“I’m afraid I can’t stay for long, I need to see to a few other ponies and then Princess Celestia wants to see me back at the castle. But I will see you all soon, I promise.” He smiled at Mrs Cake when she bowed again and held the door for him, snow rushed in and he darted out quickly and then she shut it with a heavy push.  
  
Rarity was stitching the last few threads of a customer’s snow coat that had been purchased the day before, she was humming a small tune to herself as she worked.  
Since her boutique was burnt to the ground, Princess Luna had marvelled at her work before and knew exactly what to do. She offered Rarity a house still in Ponyville to live in with enough thread and material to last until Christmas.  
There was a loud knock on her deep purple door and see left the mannequin she had been working on and went to answer the door.  
She quickly glanced through the peephole and Drake on the other side, to which she instantly used magic to fling the door open and allowed Drake to rush inside. The door slammed shut and Rarity squeaked with excitement when she saw Drake.  
“Oh darling, it’s marvellous having you within my home.” Rarity smiled warmly and rubbed her head against Drakes side; he smiled warmly to her and bent down to give her a hug.  
“I’ve missed you so much Rarity.” Drake replied and held her tightly.  
“You must tell me what you have been doing as Princess Celestia’s very special some…pony?” Rarity wasn't sure that was the best thing to describe her as.  
“Close enough.” He chuckled and so did Rarity. She led him over to a small table covered in cloth and string; she used her levitation magic to lift everything at once and it flowed through the air to land in a tidy heap on the floor in the corner of her home.  
“So what brings you to my new home sweetie?” Rarity asked and lifted over a large white teapot with a diamond in the handle and two tea cups, she quickly began to pour out the tea then levitated the left cup over to Drake who took it in his hands.  
He sipped it but didn’t make a slurp. Living with the Princesses now had changed him ever so slightly and it had only been a day or so.  
“I came to offer you a ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala, it was rudely interrupted before and now we set it up again.” He dug his right hand into his trench coat pocket while holding the cup of tea with his left.  
He pulled out an envelope and placed it gently on the table.  
“I’d be honoured darling to come to the Grand Galloping Gala…although…” Rarity slowly lowered her tea cup and set it on the table.  
“You’re worried about recurring events are you not?” Drake asked as he too set down his tea cup.  
“I fear for everypony, but I fear more for Sweetie Bell.” She breathed out slowly to calm herself.  
Drake licked his lips and tasted the tea on them.  
“Fear not, I even had to win Princess Celestia over with this so she too fears for everypony. And now we have three Alicorns on high alert and the greatest captain of the guard ordering all the troops, nothing will stop this party.” He smiled to her and she forced a smile back.   
“How’s Twilight?” she made herself ask aloud to change the subject.  
“She’s resting, it’s been traumatic for her and everypony else, but the physical scars will disappear in a week or two.” He replied and stood up. “But I fear the mental scars will haunt her for the rest of her life.” He walked over to the front door and buttoned up his black trench coat.  
“I’ll come to the Grand Galloping Gala, but I won’t bring Sweetie Bell.” Rarity didn’t look up to see Drake out.  
“I understand. Thank you for the tea.” Drake replied and let himself out through the door and into the blizzard outside.  
Rarity sat in minutes of silence staring at her cup of tea that slowly went cold.  
Tears trickled down her face and splashed onto the table.  
“Dam it.” She cried silently to herself.  
  
Fluttershy was floating around her tree home feeding her little animals, the bird houses were full of little birds and the homes on the floor were teaming full of woodland creatures.  
Since the tragic events of three days ago, it seemed that every creature in Equestria needed a new home, and Fluttershy was more than delighted to have them.  
She giggled lightly as her bunny Angel stomped his foot gently for his share of food, she filled his food bowl with green healthy lunch food.  
A sudden knock at the door made her flinch in mid-air and she dropped the bag of food onto the floor, it spilled out everywhere and she tutted while Angel was over the moon as he dug into the mound of food.  
Fluttershy flew over to the door and landed on the floor, as she opened the door the snow was blowing away from her home so she wasn't buffeted by the snow storm. But a tall figure in a long black coat stood before her with his head tucked down.  
“Good afternoon Fluttershy.” He smiled to her and she beamed back.  
“Oh, hello Drake please come in.” she opened the door fully and Drake stepped inside, her home smelt of pine needles and cleanliness. The furniture had been moved around a bit since the last time he was in her home.  
“How have you been?” he asked as he undid his coat.  
“I’ve been good thank you, and…what about you?” she walked past him quickly to stop Angel from eating everything.  
“I’ve been great thanks, Princess Celestia keeps a clean home and a big bed.” He smiled at her as she cleaned up the mess of food. “I’ve brought you an invitation to the Grand Galloping Gala.” He pulled out a white envelope in his coat pocket and held it in his hand.  
“Ooh, I’d be delighted to attend, Drake.” Fluttershy shot into the air and then quickly floated gently back down. He handed it to her and she took it in her mouth then trotted over to her couch and she gently placed it down.  
“I see your woodland creatures are back.” Drake smiled as he stared at the birds circling his head.  
“Oh, yes. They needed a home and…” Fluttershy looked at them and smiled.  
“I couldn’t think of somepony better for helping them.” He quickly butted in and this made Fluttershy quickly swoop over to his head height and gave him the biggest, strongest and warmest hug she could muster up.  
“I don’t…I….please don’t ever leave us…Drake…” Fluttershy said in-between sobbing, her chest rose and fell rapidly, and Drake held her tightly and let a few silent tears escape his eyes.  
“Not for anything in the universe.”   
  
  
  
Princess Luna was sitting in her starry sky painted room in the Canterlot castle, since Discord had destroyed it by blowing it up, she had put in a new design for her own room and loved every single inch of it.   
Instead of a black painted ceiling with navy blue walls, she now had a copied spelled ceiling from when she created the Discordia Castle. The stars were mimicked to high detail on her ceiling so it looked just like she didn’t even have a ceiling. The walls also had been charmed so that she could change it to make it seem like it expanded into the entire universe complete with constellations, black holes, galaxy swirls and planets.  
For the time being, she had her room in a basic shape. Four walls in a rectangle shape with her star galaxy bed in the far corner and a large full wall size mirror in the middle of one of the long walls.  
She stood before the mirror brushing her hair with a levitating black brush while humming a song she learnt from Drake and singing partial words when the song came to it.  
“Hmm hmmm…hear the whispers in the dark…hmmm mmm hmmm…light the night with stars…” she smiled to herself as she sang.  
She didn’t hear the door creak open over her humming and brushing.  
“You’ll never be alone!” she held the brush like a microphone and sang loudly. “When darkness comes, you know I’m never far!” She grew louder with each note.  
“Hear the whispers in the dark.” Princess Luna jumped to her hooves and dropped the brush to see Drake standing at the door frame leaning against it, he still wore his long black coat but had it unbuttoned. His black spiky hair was soaked in snow that had melted into water so it stuck to his head.  
“Couldn’t you knock?” she was startled but picked the brush back up and carried on brushing her hair.  
“You wouldn’t have heard me anyway.” He chuckled but stayed at the door.  
“Is there something….you can come in.” she said to Drake who nodded and slowly walked in and closed the door. “Is there something I can help you with?” she carried on with her enquiry.  
“Sort of. But you can’t let your sister know.” He stepped closer to her. “Promise me?”  
“Of course, but what could be so important that you can’t tell her?” she asked and hopped onto her bed.  
“Well, you know how Spike in Ponyville is in love with Rarity?” he asked her and she nodded, but wasn't sure where he was going with this. “Well, does that mean relations don’t have to just be between similar species?”  
“Well, I guess as long as they both love each other then it wouldn’t matter what species they are.” She replied as she watched him look at the constellations in her ceiling. “What does this have to do with anything?”  
“It’s just…I love your sister and…” he glanced back at her and saw Luna biting her lower lip.  
“Go on.” She insisted.  
“Different note, what about marriage; does that have to be between similar species?” he asked nervously.  
“Well like I said before….” Princess Luna began and then it hit her. Her eyes darted back to Drake who was standing uneasily. “Oh.”


	25. The Question

Drakes room was always untidy, all the time, he had been designed his own room with the help of princess Celestia. His bed was a large double white fluffy bed with royal crafted bedding and duvet, it was in the centre of his perfectly circular room on a foot high step. The red walls had large framed pictures of Drake and each individual pony in six frames.  
The picture of Drake and Twilight reading together was taken on the third day of his arrival, they were sitting in her home in ponyville.  
The second picture was of him and Applejack building a house when he had volunteered.  
The next was of him and Rainbow Dash dancing to some of Drakes techno music.  
The fourth was of Fluttershy standing timidly by his side and completely shy of the camera.  
The fifth had Pinkie Pie giving Drake a massive hug in sugar cube corner.  
And the final one was of Drake testing out some clothes for Rarity who looked at him with awe.  
Clothes were strewn around the room and some looked like they had jumped out of his closet built into the circular wall, he had been given a large amount of new clothes from the royal designer as a gift for saving Equestria and they now were all spread out on his bedding.  
The pillows were piled up on the floor beside his bed and he picked either two or three each night to sleep on.  
For now though, Drake was standing facing a large mirror behind a very sturdy looking dark wooden table. He had a few things on top of it such as a few pieces of parchment, a quill but no ink and a small deep royal purple box that curved at the top. He kept glancing at it and then back at his reflection in the mirror, his blue eyes looked blood shot and he hadn’t shaven in a week so he had a shadow on his face. His hair looked groomed but also untidy at the same time, Rarity would certainly have been mortified at him and his room as he glanced at it in the mirror.  
There was a knocking at his door and he shot backwards so he was standing straight, he opened his mouth to allow them to come in but then realised the box on his table and snatched it up and shoved it in his coat pocket that hung on a white coat hanger beside the left side of his door.  
“Come in.” he called out. In walked Princess Luna in her Gala clothes, black and navy blue royal clothing, her mane flowed down her left side and she looked beautiful. “Oh, hello Luna.”  
“Expecting somepony?” she asked and shut the door behind her.  
“I thought…. that you were your sister.” He chuckled and breathed deeply.  
“She’s busy meeting the first guests now. That will take her a good half hour for you to get ready.” she replied calmly and looked over the clothes lying everywhere across the room. Some shirts had been matched with trousers but none looked presentable. “Trouble with your clothes?”  
“What?” he asked quickly and then looked around the room. “Oh, yea I guess.”  
“Would you like me to help you?” she offered.  
“I’m fine really.” He half smiled to her but when he saw himself in the mirror again, he thought differently. “Maybe just a bit of help please.”  
Every piece of clothing from socks to jumpers was then coated in a thin layer of dark purple magic from Luna’s horn, they were lifted into the air and then suddenly began to slowly circle the room in a very tidy and organised manner.  
“Hmm, you need to look smart, but also relaxed.” Luna glanced at all the different clothes that spun slowly around the room.  
“What about that one?” Drake pointed at a red button up shirt behind Luna, she turned her head and instantly shook it.  
“No, that’s hideous.” She quickly stated and threw it in the closet and then brought down a light blue top and pressed it against Drakes chest.  
“I don’t usually wear blue.” Drake said quietly.  
“I can tell.” She replied and looked at the stubble on his face. “You go…change your face hair…” she said awkwardly.  
“Shave…” he corrected her.  
“Right…and I’ll find you something to wear…” she turned her attention back to the clothes and Drake stepped through the white archway in the wall of his room, his bathroom contained a large Jacuzzi size bathtub with mirrors along the walls. The size had been designed for the size of Alicorns like Princess Celestia, so Drake was more than happy to stretch out in it.  
He turned towards a white sink with his tooth brush, tooth paste and a razor without any shaving cream. He picked it up and instantly cringed at the blade, old hair and skin was covering it so badly that he knew he wouldn’t be able to use it, he threw it in the bin beside his toilet and walked back out into his bedroom.  
Princess Luna had narrowed down the clothes to three shirts, five pairs of trousers and two suits and oddly enough a long very dark blue trench coat.  
“You didn’t shave!” she almost yelled at him when he walked out.  
“Blades blunt.” He apologised to her and she tutted.  
“Just stick these on and you should look fine.” She flung a white shirt at him and a pair of dark navy blue trousers that resembled her mane colour.  
“Do you mind leaving?” he asked in a polite manner, he held the shirt close to him but Luna just raised an eyebrow to his request.  
“I’ve seen you in few clothes before Drake.” she sternly replied, his eyes became a wide as dinner plates.  
“When?” his mouth hanging open.  
“When we went to the beach?” she replied, drake suddenly remembered, he went with princess celestia to open a new beach and Luna had tagged along for good exposure, he had been wearing a swimming costume that covered only his groin down to his knees.  
“Fine then.” He replied sharply and took his top off to replace it with the white one but even what Luna had said before, he still went to the bathroom to change his trousers over to the dark blue ones.  
A sudden knock at the door of his room startled both Princess Luna and Drake, they stared at it for a second until Drake called them in.  
In walked a pony with a white mane and a black coat, her cutie mark was a silver tray and she was levitating a golden tray with a small cup of what looked like coffee and a large sandwich of lettuce, bacon and tomato.  
“Your tea sir.” She said quietly and then left the room quickly.  
“When did you order that?” Luna asked him.  
“I don’t know, I’ve been so nervous of this day that I doubt I remember anything.” He replied and bit into the sandwich and took a large gulp of the coffee, it was luke warm and had a strong tangy taste to it. “That’s disgusting.” He said quietly and sat it down with force that the whole tray quivered.  
“My sister is greeting guests on the stair way, you should go wait by her side.” Luna smiled and Drake nodded, he placed the rest of the sandwich down and headed out his door and into the long corridor of paintings and tapestry of equestria history, he quickly passed them but made sure not to look at the painting that had been done by a famous pony of hi fight with Discord, he hated that and had even begged Princess Celestia to remove it, but she refused.  
He stepped quickly down a flight of stairs that spiralled down a circular tower dedicated to him because Princess Celestia ordered it.  
“Do I look good?” he heard Luna’s voice from his left and saw her slowly levitating down through the massive gap between each flight of stairs.  
“You look great.” He replied with a smile and sped up to beat her to the bottom.  
He missed a step at the bottom and almost fell but gained his balance.  
“Let’s go then.” He said and slipped on the door knob when he went to grasp it.  
“Clutz.” Luna replied and swung the door open for him.  
Drake mouthed a quick thank you and then hurried out the door, it led to a brief set of white marble stairs covered by a thin layer of royal blue rugs.  
His eyes lit up and his heart flipped over in his chest when he saw, standing at the top of the bottom of the stairs he was walking down, but standing at the top of the changing of stairs that led further down to the ground level, was the most beautiful sunlight emitting white Alicorn. His feet almost tripped him up as he hopped down the stairs.  
Princess Celestia had removed her golden armour and replaced it with a white flowing dress that had golden sparkling jewels on the bottom of it. Drake knew how rare they were because he had led a few royal guards to relocate a dragon in a deep cave, Drake had been given the title of captain of the guard so he was in charge of the whole team now, but later he found out that the previous one, a stallion by the name of Shining Armour was Twilights brother, the stallion was heartbroken so Drake had a talk with both Princess’s and now he was currently second in command to Shining Armour; going on tours with him in dangerous terrain and taking over in case Shining Armour fell ill. The dragon had stepped on a large rock beforehand and had it wedged in his claw, Drake was able to remove it because he was small and more flexible than the Pegasus guards that had joined him. The dragon having been feeling so happy about it, gave Drake a large chest full of precious and very rare jewels.  
These ones that Celestia had sewn into her dress were ones that sparkled with magical sunlight when only worn by her and nopony else.  
Drake quickly stood beside her and watched as she greeted guests to the Grand Galloping Gala, extending welcomes to them as they pasted her and up the stairs to the opposite way Drake had walked down.  
His head was swimming but he noted it down to nerves.  
“Hi.” He breathed out slowly as he greeted her, her mane looked stunning as he felt it brush against his back.  
Now something was weird, his vision was beginning to swirl slightly, even because of nerves it shouldn’t do this.  
“You could have at least shaven before you left your room.” She groaned as she glanced at him, she took another quick glance at him when the next guest had passed her and headed up the stairs. “Are you ok? Your eyes are very red, and you look quite pale.” She sounded concerned, Drake certainly didn’t feel too great either.  
“I…I think I’m just nervous.” He gasped, his breathing was feeling harder and harder while his body was burning up, and he had never felt heat like this before.  
Princess Celestia gasped happily though and Drake snapped his blurry focus towards the front doors, he saw a small purple pony trotting in quickly accompanied by an orange pony with a dress that didn’t really suit her, as her facial expression showed it.  
“Twilight Sparkle, I’m so glad you could make it.” Princess Celestia happily cried out, Drake watched as the purple pony in front of him split into two and then refocused.  
That’s it, he thought deeply to himself as his legs felt like they would give way any second.  
He slowly stepped forwards with one leg to greet Twilight and Applejack, but his knee cap gave way and before he could stop himself, he heard both ponies and Celestia cry out in terror. Once he opened his eyes though, his vision was defocusing from triple vision to know four lots of everything now.  
He was staring up at the ceiling and could see Celestia crouching over him and her face panic stricken.  
  
  
Princess Celestia bent over Drake as his eyes began to wander around the room, his skin becoming paler by the second and his lips becoming deeper shades of blue.  
“What’s happening to him?” Twilight Sparkle cried out as she glanced over his body, his hands gripped the rug beneath his tightly and the veins in his body began to bulge.  
“Poisoned.” A sly and cocky voice rang out and all three of them looked up at the top of the stairs, Princess Celestia’s heart jumped into her throat as she saw a white earth pony with a lime green mane and a purple tail. His cutie mark had been slashed but was healing slowly, a large X covered it from side to side but instead of a bloody mess, it now had a deep scar on it.  
In all her life, Princess Celestia had been a calm and gentle Alicorn, even as a foal playing with her sister in the summers she played softly and neither of them got injured even when she taught Luna how to fly.  
But now, rage welled up inside her to the brim, if she wasn't such a calm alicorn in her life then she would have attacked by now. He teeth grinded together and sparks danced from her horn.  
“What kind of poison?” Twilight asked loudly, she glanced from the vicious white pony to Drake who was growing in body heat by the second.  
Twilight was a good alchemist book reader and knew if she knew the poison inside him then she could at least try to counter it.  
“Cyanide.” The white earth pony growled and Twilight gasped, there was no way in Equestria that she could counter a poison like that!  
And that’s when Princess Celestia felt it, the snap In her nerves and the rage burst out of her like a wild manticore in full anger while trying to fight for its life.  
In a blinding flash of sunlight that burst from the tip of her long white horn, she blinded the earth pony and using her shoulder, she pinned him against the stairs.  
“YOU WILL DIE!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, her voice cracking as she yelled but she was beyond caring for herself.  
The white earth pony’s eyes were now tiny red dots, fear gripped his body and he could think of nothing else.  
“There is…no cure…” he gasped as the princess dug a white hoof into the pony’s wind pipe.  
“Then there shall be two deaths here!” she growled as white hot sparks fell from her horn and into the earth pony’s eyes, he yelped out in extreme pain but Celestia didn’t care.  
“Er…Princess, ah think ya’ll want to take a gander at this!” Applejack spoke loudly and the Princess swung her head around to look at Drake, Twilight saw the expression on her face and hoped to never feel that wrath from her tutor in all her life.  
Drake was watched over by Twilight and Applejack when Celestia had sealed the white earth pony in a sunlight bubble that kept him out of trouble and trapped.  
Drake’s body…was glowing.  
His clothes were untouched but his hands and his face were lit up like the sun, Princess Celestia grabbed Twilight and applejack to lead them backwards away from him.  
He got to his feet slowly and looked at his hands, they looked like they were giving off steam at high speeds, he had done this before when Discord ruled Equestria, he had regenerated.  
“Princess, I’m sorry…” he found himself saying, it made sense at the time but after a few seconds he didn’t know why.  
  
His arms quickly stretched out and he flung his head back as his body exploded into a tower of bright colours of the rainbow, instead though of feeling pains rippling through his arms like last time though, this time he felt like his chest was expanding rapidly and his stomach was squeezing everything out of it.  
Then it stopped, his body stopped glowing and he was calm again.  
He glanced down and saw the princess cowering slightly with Twilight and Applejack by her side.  
“You’re…alive?” she gasped as tears began to form.  
“Yea, I can’t die, I’m sorry.” He apologised but was quickly tackled with a hug by Celestia, her huge white wings enveloping him and he held her tightly.  
“I love you Drake, don’t ever leave me!” she screamed as tears ran down her face and onto his clothes.  
“Well, actually there is something I wanted to ask you…” he replied and dug his hand into his pocket to pull out the small box.  
Her eyes fell upon it and her heart did flips.  
“Princess Celestia…” he said softly and bent down, he looked up to her and she looked into his eyes.  
“Yes?” she asked.  
“Will you marry me?” he waited on edge for the answer.  
It took her just a second of gathering her breath.  
“Of course I will.”


End file.
